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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


GIFT  OF 


DANIEL    C.     OILMAN. 


MISCELLANEOUS  SERMONS 


OF   THE   LATE 


REV.  PROF.  ELEAZAR  T.  FITCH,  D.D. 


Jfrrst  Series. 


SERMONS. 


PRACTICAL  AND  DESCRIPTIVE, 


PREACHED    IN    THE    PULPIT  OF 


YALE  COLLEGE. 


BY 

REV.  ELEAZAR  T.  FITCH,  D.D., 

LIVINGSTON  PROFESSOR  OF  DIVINITY   FROM  1817  TO  1852. 


- — He  being  dead  yet  speaketh. 


NEW  HAVEN. 
JUDD    AND     WHITE 

1871. 


Entered,  according  to  act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871, 

BY    LUCIUS    W.    FITCH, 

in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


PREFACE. 


This  volume  is  issued  in  response  to  the  urgent  request  of  a  number 
of  my  father's  friends  and  admirers  ;  and  its  publication  is  doubtless 
looked  for  by  many  others. 

The  sermons  selected  are  such  as,  from  the  subjects  and  the  mode  of 
their  treatment,  were  quite  generally  valued  at  the  time  of  their  delivery. 
And  accordingly  it  appears  eminently  appropriate  to  commit  them  to 
the  press  ;  not  only  for  the  sake  of  those  persons,  among  whose  most 
sacred  memories  their  words  yet  linger,  and  who  will  greet  them  as  long 
absent  friends,  returned  again  ;  but  also,  that  productions,  thus  proved 
by  the  concurring  opinions  of  so  many  competent  judges  to  possess  the 
elements  of  a  permanent  influence,  may  reach  a  wider  public,  and 
accomplish  larger  results  of  good. 

It  may  be  proper  to  observe,  that  the  selection  is  based  chiefly,  upon 
the  special  mention  of  particular  sermons  in  cordial  and  encouraging 
letters  of  friends,  received  since  my  father's  death,  or  upon  the  sugges- 
tions of  judicious  advisors  at  hand. 

Should  this  volume  be  favorably  received,  I  may  follow  it  with 
another  series  of  the  same  general  character. 

LUCIUS  W.  FITCH. 
NEW   HAVEN,  JULY,    1871. 


CONTENTS. 


The  Word  of  God  the  Guide  to  Happiness  in  this  Life.     A  BAC- 
CALAUREATE SERMON. [1826]  i 

The  Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects.         -                                  [!84O]  17 

The  Destructive  Influence  of  the  Transgressor  in  a  College.         [1827]  33 

The  Good  Portion  that  is  Never  Taken  Away.          -         -         -     [1831]  49 

The  Power  of  Trust  in  God  to  establish  the  Heart  against  the 

Force  of  Evil.            __..-._         [1840]  67 

The  Trial  of  Abraham. [1846]  85 

The  Privilege  of  Union  to  God  and  his  People,  chosen.       -         [J835]  IO5 

Raising  from  the  Dead  the  Son  of  the  Widow  at  Nain.      -         -     [1846]  119 

The  Scene  of  the  Transfiguration. [J846]  133 

The  Ignorance  of  Man  respecting  the  Good  or  Evil  of  his  Tem- 
poral Lot.     A  BACCALAUREATE  SERMON.     ...     [1845]  149 

No  Continuing  City  here. [1821]  161 

On  Seeking  a  Continuing  City  to  come.                                -         -     [1821]  175 

Christ  Precious  to  Believers.                             -                                     [1816]  189 

fo  Order  in  the  Grave  ;  or,  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the  manner 

of  executing  Temporal  Death.                                  -         -     [1840]  201 

The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.     ---.._         [1846]  217 

The  Righteous  in  their  Immortality  to  live  within  the  Scenes 

of  a  Material  Universe.      -                                     -         -     [1840]  235 


Vlll. 

The  Purchase  of  the  Truth.     A  BACCALAUREATE  SERMON.     -  [1846]  255 

No  Refuge  from  Condemnation  but  Christ.      -  [1831]  271 

The  Duty  of  reproving  the  Works  of  Darkness  in  Sinners.  [1824]  289 

The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal,  tried  before  Israel  at  the 

Altar  of  Sacrifice.     -        -  [1846]  299 

The  Ascension  of  Jesus.  [1846]  319 

The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the  Appointment  of  Death  to  our  Race.        [1839]  335 

Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness.     -  [1847]  353 


GOD'S    WORD  MAN'S  CHIEF  JOY  IN  THIS  PRES- 
ENT TIME. 


[A   BACCALAUREATE    9ERMOX.] 


PSALM  CXIX  :  54. 

THY    STATUTES    HAVE    BEEN    MY    SONGS    IN    THE    HOUSE    OF    MY  PILGRIMAGE. 

FROM  the  lives  of  others  we  may  derive  lessons  of  prac- 
tical wisdom  at  the  very  commencement  of  our  own. 
While  yet  the  morning  of  youth  is  beaming  on  us,  and 
we  are  looking  forward  to  a  long  day  of  anxiety  and  toil 
on  the  earth,  we  may  hear  from  the  lips  of  the  aged  the 
recital  of  their  experience,  or  read  in  the  volumes  of  the 
dead  their  yet  surviving  testimony  ;  warning  us  of  the 
dangers  we  are  to  shun,  and  pointing  out  to  us  the  true 
paths  of  peace  and  prosperity. 

I  have  now  read  to  you  the  testimony  of  a  pious  mon- 
arch in  Israel,  respecting  his  own  life,  which  he  recorded, 
for  the  praise  of  Jehovah  and  for  the  benefit  of  succeeding 
generations ;  in  which  you  hear  the  voice  of  experience, 
testifying  to  you  the  sources  of  happiness  which  exist  for 
the  consolation  of  man  amidst  the  mutabilities  of  the  pres- 
ent world.  This  monarch,  near  the  close  of  his  eventful 
life  (as  it  has  been  generally  supposed),  surveys  the  past ; 
recalls  the  events  of  fleeting  years  through  which  he  has 
journeyed, — a  stranger  on  a  pilgrimage  in  the  earth  ;  re- 
counts the  days  of  affliction  and  prosperity  that  have 
rolled  over  him  ;  and,  in  grateful  acknowledgment,  testi- 
fies unto  God  that  his  statutes  have  illuminated  his  dwell- 
ing with  its  brightest  joys  and  consolations,  which,  in 
days  of  prosperity  were  prized  by  him  beyond  ''thou- 
sands of  gold  and  silver;"  and  without  which,  in  days 
of  darkness,  he  "had  perished  in  his  afflictions;"  which 
had  ever  afforded  him  themes  of  grateful  meditation  ; 

2 


God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


guided  him  in  the  conduct  of  life  ;  inspired  his  confidence 
and  hope ;  rapt  his  spirit  in  the  composition  of  devotional 
songs ;  and  caused  his  tabernacle  to  resound  with  the 
glad  voice  of  praise  and  joy  : — "  Thy  statutes  have  been 
my  songs  in  the  house  of  my  pilgrimage."  The  experi- 
ence of  the  Psalmist,  to  which  he  has  testified  in  this 
declaration  affords  to  all,  this  salutary  lesson  for  the  reg- 
ulation of  their  lives :— that  THE  WORD  OF  GOD  is  THE 

ONLY  GUIDE  TO  TRUE  HAPPINESS  AMID  THE  CHANGES  OF 
THIS  WORLD. 

In  inculcating  this  truth,  I  purpose  to  consider,  partic- 
ularly, some  of  the  sources  of  joy  which  the  word  of  God 
offers  to  man  amid  the  changes  of  this  life.  This  train  of 
remark  may  serve  at  once  to  show  us  on  what  the  happy 
experience  of  David  was  founded,  and  how  we  are  to 
transfuse  the  same  experience  into  our  own  lives. 

In  order,  then,  to  set  before  you  the  fountains  of  joy 
which  the  statutes  of  Jehovah  open  to  man  in  this  life,  I 
remark, 

I.  That,  amid  all  the  changes  of  time,  they  present  to 
his  meditations  the  same  God  of  unclouded  excellence. 

Man  is  a  contemplative  being ;  but  in  his  busy  contem- 
plation he  finds  no  resting  place  within  the  limits  of 
created  things.  He  surveys,  indeed,  with  pleasure,  the 
wonders  of  creation  which  surround  him  ;  he  explores 
writh  delighted  vision  and  study,  the  world  of  his  habita- 
tion and  the  worlds  which  glitter  upon  him  from  the 
firmament ;  but  from  all  these  lower  objects  of  creation, 
his  mind  instinctively  rises  to  that  Eternal  Spirit  from 
whom  they  proceeded,  who  guides  all  by  his  wisdom  and 
hath  established  over  all  his  throne  in  the  heavens.  I  say, 
instinctively \ — for  the  disruption  of  his  soul  from  God, 
which  afflicts  fallen  man,  is  a  strange  violence  done  to  his 
nature. 

Now  it  is  the  statutes  and  testimonies  of  Jehovah,  which 
present  to  the  contemplations  of  man  the  brightest  exhi- 
bitions of  his  infinite  glory.  While  we  gaze  on  the  aston- 
ishing exhibitions  of  his  power  and  intelligence  which 
meet  us  from  the  works  of  his  creation  and  providence, 


God's  Word  Man's  Chief  Joy  in  1  his  Present  Tune. 


his  word  comes  to  address  us  more  fully  ;  to  explain  his 
designs ;  and  to  make  known,  beyond  a  doubt,  the  attri- 
butes of  his  will.  Benevolence,  righteousness,  mercy, 
truth,  in  one  unclouded  sun  of  glory,  beam  upon  us  from 
his  throne ;  and  assure  us  of  his  perfect  claims  to  the  ven- 
eration, homage,  praise,  obedience,  and  confidence  of  all 
on  earth  and  in  heaven.  In  the  law  which  he  has  ordained 
for  his  moral  kingdom,  in  conformity  to  which  he  con- 
ducts all  his  works  of  providence,  government,  and  re- 
demption, we  read  his  heart  of  benevolence  ;  and  find 
him  a  being  worthy  to  be  contemplated  with  supreme 
delight  during  every  stage  of  our  endless  existence, — a 
being  with  whom  the  spirit  can  hold  a  communion  in 
intelligence  and  love,  forever  improving  and  brightening. 

What  a  fountain  of  joy  is  here  opened  to  man  amid  the 
changes  of  time !  Whatever  events  betide  him,  from  the 
mount  of  prosperity  or  the  vale  of  sorrow  and  trial,  he 
may  look  up  alike  to  the  unclouded  excellence  of  his  God 
and  King.  Leaving  out  of  view  his  own  humble  interests, 
he  may  look  to  him  who  is  unchangeably  glorious  on  the 
throne,  conducting  all  things  with  a  goodness,  righteous- 
ness, and  purity  forever  untarnished,  and,  absorbed  with 
delightful  contemplations,  be  lost,  as  it  were,  in  the  glory 
of  his  Maker.  Whether  the  cup  of  joy  or  affliction  be 
administered  to  him,  he  opens  the  statutes  of  Jehovah 
and  sees  the  same  God  of  Glory  on  the  throne,  worthy  as 
ever  to  be  loved  and  praised  by  his  creatures ;  and  he 
can  mingle  with  every  blessing  and  trial  of  his  earthly 
lot,  as  did  David,  the  song  of  praise  :  "  the  Lord  reigneth, 
let  the  earth  rejoice." 

Man,  I  say,  may  derive  this  joy  from  the  statutes  of 
the  Lord.  They  place  before  his  meditations,  the  un- 
changing and  untarnished  excellence  of  his  King ;  and 
assure  him,  beyond  all  the  darkness  and  doubts  that  might 
otherwise  hang  over  this  life's  pilgrimage,  that  God  is 
just  and  good  and  pure,  in  all  his  doings  in  his  kingdom. 

How  much  joy  and  peace  and  consolation,  derived  from 
this  source,  have  cheered  and  brightened  this  vale  of 
tears  is  fully  known  only  to  the  eye  of  Omniscience.  But 


God's  Word Man 's  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


if  you  would  learn  its  exalted  nature,  go  to  David,  Isaiah, 
Paul;  Newton,  Bacon,  Locke,  Hale,  Edwards;  rapt  with 
the  inspiring  contemplation  :  and  see  what  themes  have 
illuminated  and  expanded  their  minds  beyond  all  the  dis- 
coveries of  the  heathen,  and  which  have  mingled  with 
their  earthly  lot  the  joys  of  brighter  worlds !  The  lan- 
guage of  one  is  the  language  of  all :  "  O  how  love  I  thy 
law,  it  is  my  meditation  all  the  day." 

Another  fountain  of  joy  opened  to  man  by  the  statutes 
of  Jehovah,  I  mention, 

II.  That  amid  all  the  changes  of  time,  they  administer 
to  him  ont  perfect  rule  of  action. 

Man  is  an  active  being  ;  formed  to  resolve  and  execute, 
and  to  affect  himself  and  others  by  the  course  of  his  con- 
duct. But  in  his  conduct  he  finds  not  his  rest  in  attempt- 
ing to  please  himself  and  his  fellow-beings  merely.  In 
order  to  his  highest  happiness  he  needs  to  commence  and 
terminate  his  activity  in  God,  the  fountain  of  all  being ; 
to  be  directed  and  quickened  by  the  authority  of  that 
wise  and  perfect  Being  who  watches  over  his  own  glory 
and  the  good  of  his  kingdom  with  ceaseless  care,  and  to 
be  employed  in  fulfilling  the  plans  of  his  goodness  and 
mercy. 

Now  it  is  through  his  statutes  that  he  uses  his  wisdom 
and  authority  in  guiding  the  conduct  of  men;  and  that 
he  employs  them  as  his  servants  in  executing  the  works 
of  his  benevolence.  These  statutes  comprise  every  re- 
quirement of  men  in  one  grand,  perfect  and  unchangeable 
law  of  doing  good, — in  glorifying  the  Creator,  and  in 
blessing  mankind.  In  this  law,  the  activity  of  man  is 
directed  by  the  Best  of  Beings  to  the  best  of  ends.  To- 
wards God  it  is  the  reverence,  homage,  worship,  obedi- 
ence, gratitude,  trust,  of  perfect  love  ;  and  towards  man, 
the  justice,  truth,  compassion,  long  suffering,  meekness, 
forgiveness  of  perfect  love, — the  perfect  precept  that 
sweetly  binds  the  soul  to  moral  purity, — perfection  in 
seeking  the  glory  of  God  and  the  welfare  of  his  kingdom  : 
and  it  is  a  law  to  inspire  joy  in  the  obedient  during  the 
ages  of  an  endless  existence. 


God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time.         5 

Here  then  is  an  unfailing  fountain  of  joy  opened  to  man 
during  the  changes  of  this  pilgrimage !  Jehovah  under- 
takes by  his  statutes  to  guide  him  in  the  paths  of  right- 
eousness. On  the  basis  of  these  statutes  man  may  be- 
come his  servant,  and  attempt,  through  every  scene  of 
this  life,  to  follow  the  will  of  his  Lord  !  Whatever  provi- 
dences betide  him  (in  this  mutable  state,)  here  may  he 
gather  the  peace  of  those  who  love  the  Lord  and  his 
kingdom.  Though  in  the  actions  of  life  he  should  not 
attain  a  perfect  conformity  to  the  will  of  his  Father  in 
Heaven,  yet  he  would  not  have  that  will  any  the  less 
perfect,  less  pure,  or  less  holy.  It  is  its  unchangeable 
perfection  and  purity  that  renders  it  desirable  and  trans- 
forming ;  which,  while  it  humbles  him  for  every  failure, 
sweetly  keeps  him  to  exalted  aims  and  purposes  worthy 
of  immortality.  And  if,  in  this  changing  state,  this  pil- 
grimage of  life,  the  events  which  befall  him,  seem  joyous 
or  grievous,  he  still  sees  Jehovah  by  the  quickening  in- 
fluence of  a  perfect  law  of  action,  conducting  him  to  the 
peace  and  purity  of  the  undenled  in  heart!  Oh  it  is  a 
joy  beyond  the  reach  of  the  agitations  of  this  world, 
which  the  obedient  gathers  from  following  the  law  of  his 
God  !  In  secret  it  is  the  consciousness  of  holy  purpose 
and  filial  communion,  which  awaits  the  soul  in  friendliness 
to  Jehovah  and  his  cause,  and  which  no  storms  from 
without  can  assail :  in  public,  it  is  the  effort  of  holy  pur- 
pose, which  allays  the  miseries,  calms  the  contentions, 
and  heals  the  moral  maladies  of  this  guilty  world  ;  and 
which  spreads  around  it  the  peace  and  serenity  of  a  new 
creation. 

Wherever  he  goes,  and  whatever  befalls  him,  the  stat- 
utes of  the  Lord  invariably  direct,  quicken,  and  support 
him  in  this  peaceful  course  of  action.  They  would  ele- 
vate him  above  the  covetousness,  lust,  pride,  rancor, 
jealousies,  rivalries,  of  this  sinful  world,  to  the  peace  of 
holiness  and  purity  and  love ;  and  while  the  days  of  his 
pilgrimage  are  blessed  with  these  quickening  and  puri- 
fying statutes  of  the  Lord,  he  unites  in  the  joy  and  song 
of  the  psalmist :  u  Thy  testimonies  that  thou  hast  com- 


God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


manded  are  righteous  and  very  faithful.  Thy  word  is 
very  pure,  therefore  thy  servant  loveth  it." 

Another  source  of  joy  which  the  statutes  of  the  Lord 
offer  to  man,  and  one  which  springs  only  from  these,  I 
mention, 

III.  That  amid  all  the  changes  of  time,  they  administer 
to  him  the  same  perfect  assurances  of  divine  favor. 

Man  is  a  dependent  being,  affected  in  his  welfare  by 
the  feelings  and  conduct  of  others,  and  most  of  all  by  the 
feelings  and  conduct  of  Jehovah.  His  personal  interests 
as  a  dependent  being  are  all  cast  upon  God,  who  if  he 
favor,  or  frown,  carries  the  weight  of  all  creation,  and 
providence,  with  him,  to  attest  his  kindness  or  his  indig- 
nation. 

Now  in  his  testimonies,  this  glorious  Being  has  put  into 
our  hands  the  solemn  assurances  of  his  favor  towards 
offending  man.  Though  our  apostasy  had  provoked  his 
just  indignation,  and  might  have  separated  him  at  hope- 
less distance  from  us  forever,  yet  in  the  benignity  of  his 
grace  he  has  here  given  us  assurances,  strong  as  his  own 
oath,  and  the  humiliations  of  his  Son,  that  he  is  ready  to 
be  reconciled  to  us  and  with  more  than  parental  care  to 
manage  for  us  all  our  interests.  We  here  read  the  cove- 
nant of  his  mercy  and  care  ;  assured  that  we  shall  find  in 
him  a  Helper  ready  to  uphold  and  guard  and  guide  us  in 
the  steps  of  this  pilgrimage.  Here  is  the  basis  of  firm 
confidence. 

These  assurances  lead  man  to  the  joy  of  reconciliation 
with  God.  With  a  conscience  burdened  with  the  appre- 
hensions of  guilt  he  is  ready  to  distrust  his  Maker,  and 
cling  to  his  rebellion  :  and  it  is  only  on  the  firm  assurances 
of  his  published  word,  that  he  can  believe,  and  enter  into 
the  joys  of  reconciliation. 

These  assurances  encourage  him  to  seek  continually 
the  blessing  of  God.  On  the  basis  of  these  he  bows  his 
knees  in  humble  and  suppliant  confidence  before  the 
Father  of  Mercies ;  and  founds  the  expectation  of  that 
grace  which  is  sufficient  for  him  in  all  the  circumstances 
of  this  life. 


God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


The  joy  derived  from  the  personal  friendship  of  God 
is  thus  communicated  to  the  soul.  Here  the  assurances 
ever  stand  written,  and  unchanged,  in  all  their  length 
and  breadth  of  love.  His  Almighty  Finger  has  engraven 
the  engagements  on  everlasting  tablets.  They  are  faith- 
ful and  unfailing  promises.  Here  then  we  may  build  our 
faith  unmoved ;  revive  it  when  it  decays ;  strengthen  it 
when  feeble ;  and  sustain  it  through  every  change  of  an 
outward  providence. 

And  what  a  fountain  of  joy  is  this,  to  see  through  every 
external  change,  the  changeless  eye  and  front  of  love  still 
beaming  on  us  from  the  heavens.  To  know  that  what- 
ever untoward  circumstances  may  come  upon  us  from  his 
providence,  or  whatever  griefs  men  may  occasion  us,  he 
still  maintains,  beyond  these  clouds  of  sorrow,  a  heart  to 
do  us  good,  and  is  ready  to  be  sought  of  us  in  all  our 
necessities.  Through  all  the  changes  of  this  state,  weak, 
erring,  sinful,  and  dependent  man  thus  descries  the  same 
unclouded  throne  of  grace  open  for  his  resort ;  and  in  the 
strength  of  faith  in  the  promises,  may  visit  that  throne 
with  his  wants,  as  did  David :  "  Thou  art  my  hiding  place 
and  my  shield.  I  hope  in  thy  word." 

One  other  source  of  joy  which  the  statutes  of  the  Lord 
present  to  man,  and  which  he  can  gather  from  no  other 
source,  I  mention  only, 

IV.  That,  amid  all  the  changes  of  this  life,  they  admin- 
ister to  him  the  hope  of  a  nobler  existence  in  eternity. 

Man  is  an  immortal  being,  sojourning  on  the  earth  but 
a  transitory  season,  ere  he  enters  on  an  eternal  dwelling. 
With  the  mind  of  an  immortal,  he  instinctively  looks  for 
that  permanent  good  which  can  come  only  from  him  who 
is  on  the  throne  of  immensity  and  eternity.  He  will,  now 
and  then,  even  in  his  farthest  alienation  from  Jehovah 
and  his  busiest  devotion  to  the  world,  feel  the  impulses 
and  desires  of  an  immortal  spirit  within  him  panting 
after  the  nobler  and  more  substantial  joys  of  immortality. 

The  wants  of  man  as  an  immortal  being,  Jehovah  has 
consulted  in  his  testimonies.  Here  he  testifies,  in  a  voice 
that  puts  to  rest  the  agitations  of  doubt  and  unbelief,  that 


8         God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


the  kingdom  of  holy  subjects  which  he  is  rearing  will 
share  in  the  vision  of  his  glories,  the  cheerful  obedience 
of  his  commands,  and  the  light  of  his  favoring  love,  for 
eternal  ages  before  his  throne.  The  joys  which  his  word 
administers  to  his  servants  on  earth,  the  same  word  as- 
sures them  shall  be  perfected  and  continued  forever  be- 
yond the  grave.  And  it  sets  before  man  a  practicable 
way  of  obtaining  this  nobler  state.  Here  he  pledges  his 
own  grace,  in  a  method  of  effectual  redemption  through 
Christ,  to  lead  and  uphold  those,  who  cordially  seek  him, 
through  the  snares  of  this  life,  to  justify  and  accept  them 
in  the  day  of  final  trial,  and  to  elevate  them  to  the  crowns 
and  the  thrones  of  the  righteous  in  his  kingdom. 

Now  it  is  on  this  word  alone,  assuring  him  of  the  tri- 
umphs of  Christianity  and  of  the  unfailing  love  of  God, 
that  man  founds  the  cheering  hope  of  a  glorious  immor- 
tality. And  he  who,  guided  by  this  word,  delights  in 
meditating  on  the  glory  of  God,  in  following  his  com- 
mandments of  purity  and  in  seeking  his  favor,  is  prepared 
to  feel  the  inspiring  joys  of  such  a  hope. 

And  how  suited  to  administer  to  him  consolation  and 
joy,  amid  all  the  changes  of  this  life,  is  such  a  hope  ! 
All  that  is  afflictive,  all  that  seems  untoward  here,  are 
but  the  trials  of  a  short  pilgrimage,  and  all  beyond  is  one 
eternal  day.  Whatever  events  befall  him  here,  whether 
his  paths  be  lighted  with  prosperity  or  shaded  with  ad- 
versity, the  statutes  of  the  Lord  direct  him  to  look  be- 
yond them  all  to  the  glories  of  immortality.  This  hope 
sustains,  comforts,  elevates  ;  lightens  and  alleviates  the 
woes  of  earth  ;  purifies  and  enhances  its  joys.  From  life 
it  removes  its  disappointments ;  and  from  death  extracts 
its  sting.  Man  stands  forth  rejoicing  in  the  liberty  where- 
with God  hath  made  him  free.  Disenthralled  from  the 
fetters  and  bondage  of  sin,  and  led  forth  by  his  Saviour 
from  the  prison-house  of  eternal  death  into  the  glorious 
light  of  day,  he  breathes  the  air  of  immortality  ;  and  even 
while  he  walks  this  earth,  he  is  enrolled  a  denizen  of  the 
Heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  claims  a  kindred  with  the  saints 
and  a  fellowship  with  angels  in  the  transports  of  the 


God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


skies.  The  testimonies  of  the  Lord  have  enkindled  within 
him  these  glowing-  hopes.  They  have  introduced  into 
the  house  of  his  pilgrimage  these  songs  of  immortals.  In 
days  of  health,  vigor  and  activity,  when  his  dwelling  on 
earth  seems  most  fixed  and  durable,  he  repairs  continually 
to  these  walls  of  salvation  for  his  sweetest  hopes  ;  and 
when  he  stands  on  the  verge  of  life — his  heart  and  flesh 
failing  him — he  leans  upon  the  ark  of  the  covenant  and 
the  word  of  the  testimony  ;  and  as  the  shadows  of  death 
thicken  around  him,  with  the  last  ray  of  feeling  he  breathes 
out  his  soul  unto  God  :  "  Let  thy  mercies  come  unto  me, 
O  God,  even  thy  salvation,  according  to  thy  word.  So 
shall  I  keep  thy  law  continually,  forever  and  ever." 

I  have  attempted,  my  brethren,  to  set  before  you  the 
Scriptures  as  the  only  guide  to  true  happiness  amid  the  changes 
of  this  iv  or  Id ;  and  have  illustrated  the  truth,  by  showing 
that  they  administer  to  man  through  all  the  events  of  this 
life  an  exhaustless  theme  of  cheering  meditation,  a  per- 
manent law  of  beneficent  action,  a  fixed  basis  of  confi- 
dence in  God,  a  firm  ground  of  hope. 

Your  attention  is  now  invited  to  a  few  remarks  sug- 
gested by  the  subject  of  our  present  meditations. 

i.  We  see  how  far  the  Scriptures  elevate  man  above  the 
changes  of  time. 

The  changes  to  which  man  is  subject  in  this  life  are 
many  and  great :  changes  in  condition,  in  station,  in  pos- 
sessions, in  friends,  in  prospects,  in  health,  in  enjoyments. 
If  the  sun  of  prosperity  gild  his  skies  to-day,  the  clouds 
of  adversity  may  obscure  them  on  the  morrow.  To-day 
the  son  of  Jesse  is  exalted  from  the  sheep-cote  and 
anointed  on  Hebron  king  of  Israel  amid  the  transports  of 
his  people  ;  to-morrow  his  rebellious  son  rends  from  him 
the  kingdom  and  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  he  retires 
from  the  sacred  city,  ascending  Olivet  with  a  few  adhe- 
rents, destitute,  barefoot,  and  weeping.  Nothing  here 
is  permanent ;  nothing  stable  and  sure.  The  mutabilities 
of  this  world  have  ever  agitated,  the  minds  of  men.  Nor 
has  man,  unguided  of  God,  relying  on  his  own  wisdom, 
ever  been  able  to  exalt  himself  in  his  feelings  above  these 

3 


io       God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


changes,  or  to  rise  above  the  wide  spreading  curse  that 
afflicts  and  desolates  humanity.  The  thoughts  of  the  wise 
have  been  vain,  the  counsels  of  the  prudent  foolish. 
What  can  the  boasted  light  of  heathenism  do  for  me  ? 
One  sage  would  make  me  a  Stoic,  and  attempt  to  soothe 
the  ills  of  this  life  by  rendering  me  insensible  to  both  the 
good  and  ill.  But  instead  of  leading  me  to  some  perma- 
nent good  that  might  cheer  me  amid  the  trials  of  this 
state,  he  has  cruelly  told  me  to  relinquish  the  hope  of 
every  good,  to  attempt  the  spiritual  suicide  of  extinguish- 
ing all  my  sensibilities  and  retiring  in  apathy  from  all 
the  glories  of  God's  creation. 

Another  would  make  me  an  Epicure  :  and  tell  me  to 
seize  each  joy  that  meets  me,  and  revel  while  I  can  in 
all  the  delights  of  sense,  and  blot  the  future  from  my 
thoughts.  But  while  I  gather  around  me  the  pipe,  the 
tabret,  the  harp,  the  dance,  the  feast,  the  wine,  and  fill  my 
senses  with  the  delights  of  earth  in  a  day  of  worldly 
prosperity,  I  cannot  annihilate  the  morrow  nor  the  evils 
that  may  come  with  it,  and  when  the  days  of  calamity 
come,  all  my  good  is  gone  and  my  griefs  are  insupport- 
able. I  asked  for  something  that  would  exalt  me  above 
these  changes,  and  he  sets  me  on  the  vain  attempt  of  an- 
nihilating the  evil. 

Another  would  make  me  an  Ascetic :  and  by  self-im- 
posed privations  and  self-inflicted  tortures,  attempt  to 
purchase,  beyond  this  life,  some  high  gradation  in  glory. 
But  he  denies  me  even  the  little  good  that  beams  upon 
me  in  this  world,  and  gives  me  no  security  that  I  shall 
not  be  disappointed  in  my  hopes  of  good  hereafter.  From 
a  land  where  some  peace  and  sunshine  dwells,  he  has 
embarked  me  on  a  rough  and  tempestuous  ocean  without 
assurance  that  I  shall  ever  reach  a  happier  shore. 

But  when  from  the  darkness  of  this  world,  I  turn  to  the 
testimonies  of  the  Lord,  I  see  a  God  illuminating  this 
world  with  the  radiance  of  his  glory,  employing  me  as 
his  servant  in  labors  of  beneficence  and  purity  and  peace, 
attending  my  paths  with  the  guardianship  of  his  Almighty 
Grace,  and  pouring  into  my  breast  the  joys  of  immortality. 


God's  WordMaris  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time.       n 


Here  Jehovah  descends  to  transfuse  into  the  cup  of  mor- 
tals the  joys  of  paradise.  These  testimonies  exalt  man 
above  the  mutabilities  of  this  state  by  yielding  him  a 
good,  great  in  itself  and  abiding :  a  good  which  far  tran- 
scends the  joys  of  time,  and  which  remains  the  same  rich 
fountain  to  cheer  and  to  sooth  in  days  of  the  greatest 
worldly  affliction.  It  is  here  that  the  good  man  ascends 
the  mount  of  converse  with  God, — high  above  the  storms 
and  tempests  which  desolate  the  world  below, — where  all 
is  sunshine  and  eternal  peace.  And  while  he  looks  down 
on  a  *  world  that  is  to  pass  away  with  all  the  lusts  thereof,' 
he  knows  that  his  joys  have  the  firm  footing  of  immortal- 
ity, and  that  '  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth 
forever.' 

2.  We  see  how  the  Scriptures  combine  the  peace  of 
man  on  earth  with  his  welfare  in  eternity. 

They  who  are  of  sensual  and  earthly  mind,  often  think 
that  the  joys  of  the  future  world  demand  the  sacrifice  of 
all  true  happiness  in  this  life.  The  reason  of  their  judg- 
ment is  easily  seen  in  their  own  supreme  attachment  to 
the  joys  of  time  and  inexperience  of  the  joys  of  the  soul 
that  is  united  to  its  God. 

But  the  testimonies  of  the  Lord  require  not  the  relin- 
quishment  of  any  real  good.  They  demand  indeed  the 
relinquishment  of  a  supreme  and  absorbing  regard  to  the 
things  of  this  world ;  but  it  is  that  man  may  participate 
in  a  good  immensely  greater  and  more  enduring.  They 
would  lead  him  from  the  objects  of  creation,  amid  which 
his  errant  and  rebellious  soul  has  been  wandering  in  dis- 
appointment and  grief,  for  its  good  back  again  to  its  Crea- 
tor and  Shepherd  to  receive  in  his  returning  favor  and 
presence  and  his  holy  service  the  high  joys  for  which  it 
instinctively  pants. 

This,  to  an  erring  soul,  is  the  joy  of  redemption  ;  a 
welcome  to  the  friendship  of  God  and  a  place  in  his 
household  to  cheer  the  days  of  his  pilgrimage  below  and 
to  last  through  the  coming  ages  of  eternity.  Here  then, 
at  the  sacred  oracles,  the  heavenly  art  is  learned  of  com- 
bining the  happiness  of  time  with  that  of  eternity.  The 


12        God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


joys  which  these  testimonies  inspire,  are  the  very  joys  of 
heaven.  They  mingle  that  world  with  ours.  They  con- 
nect its  happy  family  with  the  family  of  the  saints.  They 
inspire  in  the  redeemed  soul  in  the  house  of  this  pilgrim- 
age, those  songs  of  redemption  which  are  struck  but  with 
higher  rapture  in  the  realms  of  everlasting  day.  This 
life  is  rendered  the  dawn  of  heaven;  its  paths  a  happy 
pilgrimage  to  the  world  of  glory. 

3.  Finally,  we  learn  the  duty  of  depending  for  our 
well  being  in  this  life  on  the  published  word  of  God. 

The  testimony  of  David  is  the  testimony  of  the  whole 
host  of  the  faithful  who  have  walked  before  us  in  the 
counsels  of  the  Lord — that  these  statutes  have  yielded 
them  the  sweetest  joys  and  consolations  which  they  have 
experienced  in  this  pilgrimage.  They  open  before  us, 
my  brethren,  the  same  fountains  of  joy  that  they  have 
done  to  others — the  same  ennobling  views  of  divine  glory 
—the  same  converting  and  purifying  precepts — the  same 
assurance  of  assisting  grace — the  same  path  to  immortal 
blessedness. 

But  in  order  to  reap  this  joy,  we  must  in  faith  repair  to 
these  sacred  fountains.  We  must  accept  the  good  which 
they  tender  us  for  an  inheritance.  We  must  meditate  on 
that  glory  of  God,  and  walk  in  the  precepts  of  that  law, 
and  bow  before  that  throne  of  grace,  and  make  sure  that 
calling  to  eternal  life,  which  are  revealed  to  us  on  their 
pages. 

Are  not  the  joys  which  they  are  ever  ready  to  adminis- 
ter to  us  then,  sufficient  to  claim  this  from  us  as  our 
sacred  duty  ?  And  do  we  not  need,  amid  the  trials  and 
changes  that  await  us  in  this  uncertain  state,  to  be  guided 
by  the  unerring  testimonies  of  our  God  ? 

This  duty,  however,  I  would  on  the  present  occasion 
more  especially  commend  to  the  attention  of  those  of  us 
who  are  now  to  leave  these  walks  of  science,  and  soon  to 
enter  upon  the  vicissitudes  and  changes  of  active  live. 

My  Friends, — this  life  the  Psalmist  has  expressively 
termed  a  pilgrimage.  You  have  just  commenced  the  ex- 
istence of  intelligent,  active,  dependent  and  immortal 


God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time.       13 


beings  under  the  dominion  of  Jehovah.  He  has  placed 
you  in  this  world  but  for  a  transitory  season  on  trial  for 
eternity.  You  are  strangers  in  the  earth.  Its  fleeting 
joys  and  sorrows  are  but  the  rapid  incidents  of  a  journey 
to  the  everlasting  world.  The  past — how  like  a  dream 
appear  its  fleeting  changes  now,  from  cradled  infancy  to 
this  eventful  hour  of  manhood !  The  future — its  uncer- 
tain joys  and  sorrows  will  soon  be  past,  and  on  the  con- 
fines of  eternity  the  whole  will  appear  indeed  the  pilgrim- 
age of  strangers  here. 

To  render  your  course  in  this  short  life  truly  happy 
and  prosperous,  you  need  a  good  that  is  above  earth's 
changes,  enduring  as  eternity  ;  and  this  good  is  brought 
near  you  and  offered  you  in  the  testimonies  of  the  Lord. 
Go  then  in  every  scene  of  this  short  pilgrimage,  and 
meet  him  at  his  holy  oracles.  Repair  constantly  to  these 
fountains  of  knowledge,  holiness,  grace,  and  immortality. 
Here  you  may  establish  and  cultivate  a  friendship  with 
the  High  and  Holy  One,  that  shall  be  in  days  of  pros- 
perity your  highest  joy,  and  the  solace  of  your  hearts  in 
the  darkest  days  of  affliction. 

The  time  is  now  at  hand  when  you  will  be  called  to  act 
your  parts  in  life  alone.  Away  from  your  parental  homes 
and  the  guides  of  earlier  years,  you  are  to  contend  singly 
with  the  duties,  temptations  and  afflictions  of  the  present 
state.  And  to  whom  or  to  what  as  you  turn  to  us  the  eye 
and  press  the  hand,  in  parting  affection,  can  we  better 
commend  you  than  to  God  and  to  that  word  of  his  grace 
which  is  able  to  build  you  up  in  holiness  here,  and  to  give 
you  an  inheritance  among  the  sanctified  in  the  world  of 
glory  ? 

Have  you  already  felt  the  power  of  this  word  to  draw 
you  near  the  Lord,  and  do  you  at  this  hour  feel  the  sacred 
impulse  of  that  faith  that  casts  all  its  cares  for  time  and 
eternity  upon  his  grace  ?  Go  forth,  ye  servants  of  the 
living  God,  go  forth  at  his  call,  in  peace.  Your  confidence 
is  founded  on  the  Rock  of  Ages,  and  will  abide,  unmoved, 
the  storms  of  earth.  The  counsels  of  the  Lord  will  guide, 


14       God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time. 


protect  and  bless  you  ;  and  yield  you  many  a  song  of 
praise  while  on  your  way  to  join  the  fellowship  and 
higher  joys  of  immortals  ! 

Or  are  you  still  estranged  from  God  ?  Seek  you  no 
higher  joys  than  can  be  gathered  in  this  short  pilgrimage, 
and  in  the  objects  of  this  transitory  world  ?  Shall  those 
immortal  spirits  of  yours,  cultivated  and  refined  by  sci- 
ence, turn  away  from  the  themes  that  employ  the  highest 
and  holiest  of  the  creation  ?  the  laws  that  purify  and 
exalt  them  ?  the  favor  that  guides  the  humble  to  their 
joys?  Come  then,  ye  unhappy  aliens  from  Jehovah,  and 
at  this  hour,  around  the  ark  of  his  covenant,  on  the  basis 
of  his  offers,  settle  your  controversy  with  your  Maker. 
Establish  with  him  the  peace  of  an  endless  reconciliation. 
Shall  not  the  grace  that  calls  you,  touch  and  move  your 
hearts  ? 

You  have  heard  of  the  stubborn  son,  perhaps,  whom 
neither  the  bonds  of  parental  nor  fraternal  love  could 
restrain  from  his  froward  purpose  ;  who  left  in  alienation 
the  home  of  his  earlier  years  ;  who,  when  on  the  billowy 
deep,  or  in  some  foreign  clime,  he  was  surveying  his  little 
stores,  cast  his  eye  on  some  memorial  of  a  mother's  or  a 
sister's  undying  affection,  and  conscience  awoke  ;  his  heart 
relented  ;  the  expiring  rays  of  filial  feeling  were  re-kin- 
dled in  his  bosom  ;  and  he  returned  in  dutifulness  to  the 
once  agonized  but  now  overjoyed  family.  And  is  it  not 
so  with  erring  man  ?  Is. he  not  roving  in  alienation  from 
Jehovah  and  his  holy  family,  in  quest  of  some  portion 
among  the  distant  objects  of  his  creation  ?  And,  as  in 
grief  and  disappointment  and  shame  he  surveys  the  emp- 
tiness of  the  good  he  finds  in  this  estrangement,  amid  the 
memorials  of  heavenly  affection  that  yet  surround  him 
the  ark  of  the  covenant  meets  his  eye — over  which  the 
angels  bend  in  admiration — containing  the  archives  of  a 
Savior's  love,  the  love  that  through  humiliations  and 
tears  and  groans  invites  him  back  to  the  happy  family  of 
God.  Conscience  awakes ;  his  heart  relents ;  he  drops  his 
idols ;  he  submits  to  God,  and  seeks  through  the  pilgrim- 


God's  Word  Man  s  Chief  Joy  in  this  Present  Time.       15 


age  of  life  the  world  of  his  presence.  And  all  heaven 
joys  over  his  return.  O  may  this  heavenly  influence 
reach  and  subdue  your  hearts ! 

My  Friends,  whatever  purposes  you  entertain  in  your 
hearts  respecting  the  future,  I  have  presented  to  you  the 
only  path  to  true  prosperity  in  this  life  and  beyond  the 
grave.  And  now,  in  view  of  the  vicissitudes  of  this  pil- 
grimage and  the  unchanging  states  of  happiness  and 
misery  that  lie  beyond  the  grave,  we  commend  you  to 
God  and  the  word  of  his  grace,  while  we  affectionately 
bid  you,  Farewell. 


THE  EVIL  OF  SOPHISTRY  ON  MORAL  SUBJECTS. 


ISAIAH  V:  20. 

WOE  UNTO  THEM  THAT  CALL  EVIL  GOOD  AND  GOOD  EVIL. 

ONE  of  the  artifices  by  which  the  grand  adversary 
deceives  mankind,  is  that  of  calling  things  by  wrong 
names ;  and,  as  it  is  his  grand  design  to  keep  up  the 
empire  of  sin  in  the  world,  he  does  this  more  especially 
by  reversing  the  names  of  moral  good  and  evil.  For  he 
knows  that,  as  Eve  in  Paradise,  his  first  victim,  had, — so 
all  her  fallen  posterity  have,  such  an  innate  sense  of  the 
beauty  of  virtue  and  the  deformity  of  sin,  that  he  must 
needs  put  on  the  form  of  an  angel  of  light  and  deceive 
them  by  names  of  virtue  to  gain  a  conquest. 

To  many  the  artifice  might  seem  very  shallow  and 
little  likely  to  deceive.  For,  say  they,  is  not  holiness  as 
distinct  from  sin, — benevolence  as  distinct  from  selfish- 
ness, as  light  is  from  darkness  ;  and  can  any  one  possibly 
mistake  things  in  their  nature  so  opposite  on  account  of 
any  misrepresentation  or  misnomer?  But  it  is  not  holi- 
ness and  sin  in  the  general  and  abstract  to  which  he 
directly  applies  the  artifice,  or  in  which  he  attempts  to 
deceive  men.  These  he  leaves  untouched  by  any  direct 
assault.  It  is  enough  for  his  purpose  to  assail  them  in 
the  concrete  and  merely  accidental  forms  which  they 
assume  in  conduct,  in  action.  He  did  not  attack  Eve 
on  the  general  notions  she  entertained  of  holiness  and 
obedience  to  God,  and  attempt  at  once  to  subvert  these 
ideas  by  an  exchange  of  names.  That  were  but  to  strip 
himself  of  his  mask,  to  throw  off  his  robes  of  light,  and 
appear  before  Eve  the  fiend  of  darkness  without  ability 
more  to  deceive.  No.  He  converses  simply  about  a 

4 


1 8  Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects. 


given  conduct — the  act  of  eating  a  particular  fruit  in  the 
garden.  Now,  as  that  external  act  itself  seems  not  in  its 
own  nature  holiness  or  sin,  independent  of  its  connections 
with  other  things,  the  field  is  open  for  his  artifice  to  pre- 
sent that  specific  action  as  connected  with  high  and  holy 
ends — with  good  rather  than  evil.  And  so  he  does.  He 
represents  it  by  his  plausible  and  fair  speeches  as  desira- 
ble to  render  her  wise  in  knowledge  and  virtue.  He  thus 
surnames  the  evil  good  and  the  artifice  succeeds. 

Now,  as  it  is  true  of  the  great  adversary  and  tempter, 
so  is  it  true  of  all  who  are  enlisted  in  his  work  on  earth 
and  are  sustaining  his  empire  of  sin,  that  one  of  the  most 
effectual  weapons  they  wield  is  that  of  attaching  by 
sophistical  reasoning  and  argument  wrong  names  to  con- 
duct, and  thus  subverting  to  common  minds  its  proper 
moral  classification,  calling  what  is  evil  good  and  what 
is  good  evil. 

The  text  denounces  a  woe  on  all  who  originate  by  their 
sophistry,  or  give  currency  by  their  consent  to,  this  mis- 
representation of  the  names  of  moral  qualities  by  which 
those  which  are  morally  evil  are  classed  with  the  good, 
and  the  morally  good  with  the  evil. 

In  order  to  set  forth  to  you  the  grounds  of  such  a 
denunciation,  I  will  present  the  evil  done  by  him  who 
gives  currency  in  society  to  this  misapplication  of  terms 
on  moral  subjects.  To  this  end  I  will  attempt  to  show— 

I.  That   all   conduct    has    its    classification    into    moral 
good    and   evil   before   God,   according  to    its   tendency, 
which  classification  is  unchangeable  :  and 

II.  That  notwithstanding  this,  the  wrong  names  which 
are  applied   to   it  exert  a  powerful  influence   to  deceive 
men,  and  thereby  as  a  consequence  to  effect  vast  evil. 

i.  In  the  first  place,  then,  all  conduct  has  its  classifica- 
tion into  the  morally  good  or  the  morally  evil  before  God, 
according  to  its  tendency,  which  classification  is  un- 
changeable. 

By  this  proposition,  I  mean  that  all  the  conduct  of  man 
in  the  circumstances  in  which  it  is  performed,  is  neces- 
sarily clothed  with  the  attributes  of  moral  good  or  moral 


Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects.  19 


evil,  and  takes  its  rank  accordingly  in  the  view  of  God. 
The  same  specific  action  outwardly,  may  be  either  inno- 
cent or  constitute  a  crime,  according  to  the  particular 
circumstances  and  conditions  in  which  it  takes  place. 
As  for  instance,  the  taking  the  life  of  a  man,  if  the  act 
of  the  proper  officer  and  done  in  the  execution  of  a  proper 
judicial  sentence,  may  be  innocent ;  while  the  taking  of 
it,  if  by  the  act  of  a  private  individual,  and  done  to 
advance  his  own  personal  ends,  would  constitute  the 
crime  of  murder.  But  though  a  specific  act  in  different 
circumstances  and  under  different  conditions,  may  vary 
in  moral  quality  ;  what  I  mean  to  assert  is,  that  conduct 
is  always  so  related  and  conditioned  that  it  must  have  a 
moral  character  of  some  kind  attached  to  it,  and  that, 
where  the  attendant  circumstances  and  conditions  are 
the  same,  it  must  always  have  the  same  character. 

That  conduct  must  always  have  moral  character  of 
some  kind,  is  evident  for  two  reasons  :  one,  that  all  con- 
duct must  have  its  general  tendency  to  good  or  evil ;  the 
other,  that  the  law  of  God  takes  cognizance  of  man  in  all 
his  conduct. 

All  conduct  must  have  its  general  tendency  to  good  or 
evil.  For  man 'always  has  some  ends  of  good  or  evil  in 
view  when  acting,  which  lie  beyond  the  action  itself. 
He  never  acts  for  nothing,  however  near  his  actions  seem 
at  times  to  terminate  in  it.  He  has  some  design,  some 
end  in  view,  some  object  on  which  his  heart  is  set,  some 
motive  for  his  conduct.  And  every  such  intention  proves 
that  the  act  itself,  whether  he  rightly  interpret  it  or  not, 
must  redound  either  most  to  himself  alone  or  most  to  the 
general  good ;  it  must  be  either  selfish  or  benevolent ; 
either  morally  evil  or  good. 

It  is  evident  also  that  all  conduct  must  have  moral 
character  of  some  kind  attached  to  it,  because  the  law  of 
God  takes  cognizance  of  man  in  all  his  conduct.  His  law, 
we  know  from  its  general  tenor  as  requiring  the  whole 
heart  and  strength,  and  from  the  interpretations  of  it  in 
its  application  to  the  specific  circumstances  of  the  life,  is 
so  exceeding  broad  as  to  reach  to  every  action,  requiring 


2O  Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects. 


man  in  each  thing  he  does  to  do  what  redounds  to  the 
honor  of  God  ;  and  constituting  him  responsible  at  the 
day  of  judgment  for  all  his  deeds  done  in  the  body. 
Every  act,  therefore,  must  not  only  be  in  its  own  nature 
and  its  necessary  tendency  benevolent  or  selfish,  but  must 
be  one  of  obedience  or  disobedience  to  the  lawgiver,  and 
consequently  in  this  relation  morally  good  or  evil. 

But  not  only  must  every  action  have  moral  character 
of  some  kind  attached  to  it,  as  appears  from  these  consid- 
erations, but  also  the  same  species  of  action,  where  the 
attendant  circumstances  and  conditions  are  the  same,  must 
always  have  the  same  moral  character.  For  the  tendency 
of  the  action  is  the  same,  and  by  its  real  and  true  tenden- 
cy to  natural  good  or  evil  is  it  classed  in  the  law  as  right 
or  wrong.  The  general  tendency  of  the  same  action  per- 
formed in  the  same  circumstances  and  under  the  same 
conditions,  must  always  be  the  same  invariably,  whether 
it  be  to  the  side  of  good  or  evil.  For  this  is  but  repeat- 
ing, in  another  form,  the  plain  axiom  that  like  causes 
produce  like  effects.  For  example,  if  to  take  or  to  use  an 
article  that  belongs  to  a  neighbor,  without  his  consent, 
tends  to  injure  him  and  to  encourage  such  injuries  in  the 
community,  then  to  take  or  use  an  article  at  any  other 
time  when  the  same  conditions  exist,  viz :  that  it  belongs 
to  a  neighbor  and  his  consent  is  not  given,  has  just  and 
precisely  the  same  tendency.  And  as  is  the  tendency  of 
an  action  to  good  or  evil,  so  is  it  ever  to  be  classed  in 
morals  as  right  or  wrong.  That  which  tends  to  good  is 
invariably  right  in  form  and  can  never  in  itself  be  wrong, 
whatever  be  the  character  of  the  actor ;  and  that  which 
tends  to  evil  is  invariably  wrong,  and  can  never  be  made 
right  by  any  force  of  character  in  the  actor.  On  these 
principles  which  determine  what  species  of  actions  in  the 
abstract  men  ought  to  pursue  and  what  they  ought  to 
avoid,  moralists  have  proceeded  in  classing  various  spe- 
cific actions  with  their  limitation  and  conditions  under 
the  names  of  virtues  and  sins;  the  scriptures  too  have 
presented  to  us  on  such  grounds  and  upon  the  au- 
thority of  God,  a  great  list  of  specific  actions  as  right 


Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects.  2 1 


or  wrong  in  their  own  nature  and  tendency — as  com- 
mended or  disapproved  in  his  sight.  The  names  are 
given,  and  that  species  of  action  to  which  the  name 
attaches,  stands  forever  on  the  moral  list  as  he  has  him- 
self enrolled  it  among  the  things  which  are  right  or  are 
wrong. 

And  this  classification  I  said  is  unchangeable.  When- 
ever a  being  does  an  act  which  in  its  kind  and  circum- 
stances classes  it  under  any  of  the  names  attached  to  the 
specific  forms  of  moral  evil,  the  name  and  the  odium  of 
the  name  attaches  to  it  forever  in  the  court  of  conscience 
and  of  heaven.  If  it  is  theft,  if  it  is  lying,  if  it  is  slander, 
if  it  is  oppression,  if  it  is  any  other  species  of  sin,  the 
indictment  is  made  out  in  that  form  ;  and  the  proof  of  the 
specific  kind  of  action  taking  place  in  those  circumstances 
which  bring  it  within  the  limits  and  conditions  of  the 
statute,  is  enough  to  establish  the  verdict  of  guilty.  Nor 
can  the  indicted  criminal  plead  that  the  opinions  of  man- 
kind varied  from  the  statute  book,  or  that  his  own  opinion 
differed,  or  that,  like  Eve  intending  to  gain  wisdom,  he 
intended  anything  good.  He  is  bound  by  law  in  the 
court  of  conscience  and  heaven — his  voluntary  commis- 
sion of  what  was  prohibited  in  the  statute  book,  and  pro- 
hibited as  a  thing  necessarily  tending  to  evil,  is  enough  to 
sweep  away,  as  vain,  all  those  flatteries  of  a  surrounding 
world  or  of  his  own  heart  which,  in  the  day  of  temptation 
deceived  him,  and  emboldened  him  to  the  crime. 

But  I  proceed  to  show, 

2.  That  notwithstanding  this  eternal  distinction  in  the 
court  of  conscience  and  heaven  of  actions  into  morally 
good  and  evil  according  to  their  tendency,  the  wrong 
names  which  are  given  them  exert  a  powerful  influence  to 
deceive  man  and  thereby  as  a  consequence  work  out  vast 
evil. 

To  set  the  truth  of  this  proposition  more  clearly  before 
you,  I  will  present  to  you  the  origin  of  the  misapplication 
of  terms,  which  is  made  among  men  on  the  subject  of 
morals,  the  great  influence  these  misapplied  terms  have 
to  deceive  men,  and  the  vast  evils  which  are  consequently 
effected  by  it  in  the  world. 


22  Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects. 


The  origin  of  that  gross  perversion  of  terms  in  the 
world  which  represents  evil  as  good  and  good  as  evil,  lies 
in  that  spirit  of  libertinism  which  is  natural  to  the  heart 
of  man.  Man  does  not  well  brook  the  restraints  of  a  pure 
and  sound  morality.  His  own  nature  furnishes  a  con- 
science, and  revelation  presents  a  God,  enacting  a  strict, 
unpliable,  unchangeable  code  of  morals ;  before  which 
man  must  bow  with  willing  submission  and  conformity,  or 
be  crushed  in  anger.  Before  the  list  of  duties  and  sins 
presented  in  this  unmitigated  code,  sin  trembles  and  fears 
to  advance  ;  and  its  libertine  spirit  seeks  to  hold  up 
another  and  more  accommodating  list  before  its  eyes. 
The  more  to  sustain  itself  in  a  world  where  the  light  of 
the  true  code  is  still  shining,  it  seeks  to  advocate  its  own 
perversions  before  men,  and,  by  arraying  around  it  a  party 
of  adherents  with  their  countenance  and  protection,  thus 
to  entrench  itself  in  a  kingdom  of  darkness,  too  deep,  if 
possible,  to  be  penetrated  by  any  rays  from  the  kingdom 
of  light.  Here  then  this  libertine  spirit,  instigated  to 
such  boldness  no  doubt  by  the  grand  adversary,  enlists 
her  public  advocate.  She  has  now  a  tongue  to  speak  and  a 
plea  to  make  in  the  world.  And  that  advocate  she  intro- 
duces into  society  under  the  different  characters  of  the 
proud  sophist  and  the  vulgar  scoffer. 

The  proud  sophist  miscalls  evil  good  and  good  evil  by 
his  perverted  and  false  reasonings.  He  takes  the  more 
elevated  stand  in  society  of  the  eloquent  reasoner  :  and 
from  his  more  lofty  station  looks  down  with  pride  on  the 
vulgar  crowds  he  would  gain  over  to  his  conclusions  and 
attach  to  his  standard.  He  discourses,  back,  of  the  great 
principles  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  morals.  He 
argues  against  Christianity  with  its  revelations,  or  against 
the  eternal  sanctions  of  the  righteous  government  of  God, 
or  against  the  being  of  God  himself,  the  grand  support  of 
morality,  or  else  against  some  of  those  principles  which 
are  essential  in  themselves  to  a  sound  code  of  morals. 
The  name  he  would  affix  to  any  species  of  action  is  not 
directly  advanced,  but  follows  rather  as  a  conclusion  from 
the  fine  web  he  spins  of  sophistical  reasoning  and  casuistry. 


Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects.  23 


He  is  not  willing  that  an  action  and  the  moral  classifica- 
tion made  of  it  in  the  Scriptures  should  pass  for  its  worth. 
His  common  sense  and  that  of  the  world  might  see  too 
clearly  that  the  name  and  the  thing  correspond.  By  go- 
ing back  therefore  to  take  up  and  sustain  some  false  prin- 
ciple, or  by  starting  with  a  correct  principle  and  moving 
forward  on  a  false  track,  things  in  his  view  have  come  in 
the  result  to  change  sides.  Though  the  same  titles  of 
virtue  and  sin  remain  to  head  the  two  lists,  the  actions 
enumerated  in  the  lists  are  wonderfully  revolutionized  by 
the  process.  The  old-fashioned  sins  enumerated  in  the 
Bible  have  disappeared  as  mere  foibles  or  are  gilded  over 
as  virtues.  Its  old-fashioned  virtues  have  faded  away  as 
weaknesses  or  are  blackened  over  as  sins. 

To  the  sophist  in  this  work  of  moral  perversion,  suc- 
ceeds the  vulgar  scoffer.  He  acts  in  society  the  double 
part  of  the  flatterer  and  the  scorner.  Taking  the  conclu- 
sions that  are  furnished  to  his  hand  by  the  sophist,  he 
goes  forth  in  society  with  the  signals  and  watchwords  of 
his  leader  and  party,  applying  titles  of  flattery  furnished 
him  for  the  wicked  and  of  scorn  for  the  godly. 

He  is  the  flatterer  of  the  wicked.  He  seeks  to  soothe 
their  disturbed  spirits  with  the  smiles  of  commendation, 
and  to  blind  their  eyes  with  the  glare  of  great  swelling 
words  of  vanity  applied  to  their  conduct.  Their  unbelief 
in  God  and  his  word  he  calls,  perchance,  the  triumph  of 
reason  over  prejudice,  their  impiety  a  spirit  of  lofty  inde- 
pendence ;  their  sins  and  lusts  the  dictates  of  a  true,  large 
and  free  nature  ;  their  indifference  to  the  sins  and  im- 
pieties of  the  world  around  them,  a  generous  liberality  to 
those  who  differ  from  them  in  opinion  ;  and  their  servility 
to  him  and  his  flatteries,  the  offerings  and  evidences  of  a 
good  heart :  names  properly  used  to  signify  things  which 
are  good,  but  applied  by  him  to  things  which  are  evil. 

He  is  the  scorner  of  the  godly.  In  his  quiver  are  the 
arrows  of  detraction.  They  are  tipped  with  the  venom 
of  scorn.  They  are  shot  with  the  laugh  of  boasted 
triumph.  For  their  firm  belief  in  the  word  of  God,  he 
derides  the  godly  as  weak  and  prejudiced  enthusiasts  ; 


24  Evil  of  Sophist?y  on  Moral  Subjects. 


their  calm  and  serious  frame  of  devotion  to  God  with  its 
full  and  tranquilizing  joys,  of  which  he  knows  nothing,  he 
scouts  as  mere  gloom  and  melancholy  ;  their  deep  rever- 
ence of  God  and  holy  fear  of  sin,  is  entitled,  in  his  vocab- 
ulary, dark  and  harrowing  superstition  :  their  strict 
obedience  to  the  scriptural  precepts  of  morality,  black- 
ened as  the  bondage  of  Pharasaical  austerity  and  hypoc- 
risy ;  their  zeal  for  the  progress  of  divine  truth  and  the 
reformation  of  mankind,  stigmatized  as  narrow-minded 
bigotry,  or  blind  fanaticism  :  and  their  faithfulness  in 
reproving  him  for  his  sin,  resented  as  the  venting  of  a 
spiteful  and  malicious  heart  : — names  which  signify  evil 
things,  but  applied  by  him  to  good. 

Such  then  are  the  arts  of  misrepresentation  used  in  the 
world  on  the  subject  of  morals  :  used  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent  in  every  age  and  country — arts,  which  every  one 
must  expect  to  meet ;  a  trial  which  every  one  must  en- 
counter. The  great  power  of  this  misrepresentation  to 
deceive  mankind;  we  are  now  to  consider. 

That  there  is  in  this  artifice  great  power  to  deceive  will 
appear  from  facts,  and  from  the  nature  of  the  case. 

Facts  abundantly  show  us  the  power  of  falsehood  to 
deceive.  Every  day  presents  us  with  the  spectacle  of  its 
sad  victims.  Men  are  daily  carrying  on  the  work  of  re- 
presenting the  good  as  evil  and  the  evil  as  good,  and  their 
arts  of  persuasion  too  often  succeed.  Men  are  thus 
deceived  and  defrauded  out  of  everything  good.  They 
are  deceived  and  betrayed  into  everything  evil.  There 
are  commercial  cheats  and  those  who  believe  them  ; 
social  cheats  and  those  who  believe  them  ;  political 
cheats,  and,  worse  than  all  moral  and  religious  cheats, 
with  their  believers  and  followers.  None  stifles  his  con- 
science and  turns  knave,  but  is  sure  to  make  some  his 
dupes.  Nothing  more  fully  attests  the  power  of  the 
deception  used  in  the  world  than  this  its  success.  Its 
success  began  even  in  paradise  ;  it  has  gone  forward  to 
this  day,  and  so  it  will  continue,  we  have  reason  to  tear, 
till  the  whole  process  is  arrested  and  broken  up  by  the 
trump  of  the  Archangel  and  the  appearance  of  the  Final 
Judge. 


of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects.  2$ 


But  the  influence  it  exerts  with  respect  to  moral  good 
and  evil  among  men  will  be  better  understood  if  we  ex- 
amine the  nature  of  the  case — that  while  the  arts  of 
deception  which  we  have  been  considering  are  well 
adapted  to  have  influence  upon  men,  men  on  the  other 
hand  are  greatly  exposed  to  their  power  by  their  weak- 
ness, their  ignorance,  their  inconsideration,  and.  more  than 
all,  by  their  inclinations. 

The  arts  of  deception  we  have  considered  are  such  in 
kind  as  are  well  adapted  to  have  influence  upon  man.  A 
fellow  being  like  ourselves  on  the  stage  of  life  with  us, 
having  the  same  great  interests  at  stake,  in  time  and  eter- 
nity, appears  the  champion  of  what  he  calls  good,  the 
opposer  of  what  he  calls  evil :  himself  so  much  the  dupe 
of  Satan  as  to  believe  in  the  false  cause  he  advocates.  He 
(or  she,  for  in  these  last  days  we  have  seen  even  woman 
to  head  the  band  of  the  scoffers)  stands  up  before  us  with 
the  attributes  of  apparent  wisdom  and  philanthropy  to 
command  respect  and  attention.  He  speaks  with  an  im- 
passioned earnestness,  involving  himself  and  his  eternal 
interests  in  the  cause.  Attention  is  summoned.  Decision 
is  called  for.  His  net  is  cast  over  and  around  many 
minds,  and  his  proselytes  stand  ready  to  drag  it  gn  shore. 
They  go  forth  to  secure  decision  and  consent ;  to  gain  an 
open  avowal  from  the  consenting  ;  to  bind  them,  by  pub- 
lic committal,  to  their  own  ranks.  They  take  up  the 
terms  and  cant  phrases  that  embody  the  results  of  their 
leader's  arguments.  He  has  coined  for  them  some  word 
that  in  their  mouth  covers  -up  sophistry  :  a  word  that 
shuts  out  argument  :  a  word  that  is  the  badge  of 
honor  in  their  ranks  :  a  word  that  is  flatteringly  offered 
to  the  acceptance  of  the  hesitating  with  a  smile  of 
offered  friendship.  Will  he  accept  it,  is  the  demand  : 
yes,  or  no  ?  If  still  hesitating,  they  are  ready  to  ply 
him  with  the  alternative  their  leader  has  furnished  them 
in  the  false  phrase  by  which  he  has  blackened  the  cause 
of  good.  It  is  presented  as  a  thing  of  scorn  in  their 
ranks.  It  is  tossed  at  him  with  an  air  and  frown  betoken- 
ing triumphant  contempt  for  the  one  who  should  accept 

5 


26  Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects. 


it,  with  the  demand,  Will  you  take  that?  Assailed  by 
such  arts  and  weapons  of  sophistry,  surely  it  would 
require  firmness  in  man  to  withstand  them. 

But  the  art  of  false  persuasion  appears  greater  still  in 
degree  when  it  is  considered  relatively  as  bearing  on  the 
weakness  of  man. 

Man  is  exposed  by  his  ignorance.  Men  begin  their 
existence  as  babes  ;  and  often,  in  the  moral  sense,  they 
never  advance  beyond  childhood  :  not  having  their  moral 
senses  exercised,  by  reason  of  use,  clearly  to  discern  good 
and  evil.  They  have  very  little  acquaintance  with  the 
system  of  practical  ethics  given  in  the  Bible,  with  its 
limits  and  grounds.  They  know  them,  as  they  do  most 
of  their  fellow  men,  by  name  only.  They  are  far  better 
acquainted  with  the  desires  of  their  own  hearts,  and  with 
the  objects  of  the  present  world.  They  know  more  of 
the  relation  of  their  actions  to  things  which  are  temporal 
than  the  relations  they  bear  to  the  unseen  God  and  the 
issues  they  are  to  have  in  an  unseen  eternity. 

But  again,  men,  whatever  is  their  knowledge,  are  incon- 
siderate. They  are  inconsiderate  about  preparing  them- 
selves for  the  onsets  of  temptation.  They  are  hesitating  and 
wavering  on  the  point  of  any  fixed  principles  that  would 
arm  them  with  strength.  They  do  not  take  it  into  con- 
sideration and  decide,  whether  they  will  accept  from  God 
the  Saviour,  the  armor  which  he  offers  them  in  his  word 
by  which  they  might  be  able  to  withstand  all  the  wiles  of 
the  adversary.  And  as  they  are  not  fixed,  trusting  in 
God,  they  are  exposed  to  put  too  much  trust  in  man.  And 
when  the  hour  of  assault  is  come,  they  are  still  incon- 
siderate. They  take  into  consideration  indeed  the  whole 
that  is  offered  them  in  the  temptation  ;  but,  in  that  hour 
of  their  utmost  need,  how  often  do  they  fail  to  take  into 
consideration  the  counsels  and  persuasions  that  are  offered 
them  to  the  contrary  in  the  word  of  God  ;  and  to  make 
up  their  minds  at  once  to  follow  a  faithful  Creator  and 
reject  their  tempter.  How,  then,  with  no  consideration  to 
meet  and  with  none  to  repel  their  tempter,  can  it  be 
expected  they  would  escape  ? 


Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects.  27 


But  still  again,  and  worse  than  all,  men  are  inclined  at 
heart  to  welcome  their  tempter.  Their  hearts  are  not  set 
right  about  good  and  evil.  Their  estimates  of  temporal 
good  and  evil  are  higher  than  their  estimates  of  spiritual 
and  eternal.  They  love  and  fear  the  one  more  than  they 
love  and  fear  the  other.  By  this  strange  perversion  of  feel- 
ing, their  real  and  worst  enemies  come  to  appear  in  their 
view  as  their  friends,  and  their  real  and  best  friends  to  ap- 
pear as  their  enemies.  Their  tempters  are  soothing  flatterers 
who  exact  no  change,  who  impose  no  cost  of  reformation 
and  self-denial :  while  God  and  the  good  are  severe  re- 
provers that  in  their  faithful  love  exact  both.  Is  it 
strange  that  they  whose  hearts  are  thus  perversely 
inclined  should  say,  Prophecy  unto  us  deceits,  speak 
smooth  things,  cause  the  holy  One  of  Israel  to  cease  from 
before  us  ; — that  they  should  be  ready  to  turn  the  eye 
and  ear  away  from  God  and  open  them  both  to  their 
tempters? 

Is  it  strange  then  that  men,  amid  all  the  spiritual  ignor- 
ance they  suffer  themselves  to  remain  in,  which  seems 
hardly  competent  even  to  say  which  be  the  first  principles 
of  the  oracles  of  God  ; — that  men,  too  inconsiderate  even 
to  decide  whether  they  shall  trust  in  God  or  men  most, 
and  thus  ready  to  exalt  men  over  all  on  the  throne  of 
their  feeble  reason  ;  that  men  so  in  love  with  the  world 
and  estranged  from  God  in  their  hearts,  as  to  fear  the 
costs  and  self-denials  of  religion  more  than  the  pains  of 
eternal  damnation  ;  should  be  carried  away  by  the  decep- 
tive arts  of  the  ungodly  wise  men  and  disputers  of  this 
world,  when  pressed  with  all  their  sophistry  and  assailed 
by  the  clamors,  the  boasts  and  the  scorns  of  their  adher- 
ents? Is  it  strange  that  they  should  come  to  believe  a 
lie,  when  it  is  so  acceptable  and  so  strongly  enforced— 
that  they  should  commit  themselves,  enroll  with  the 
party,  and  unite  with  them  thenceforth  in  calling  evil  good 
and  good  evil  ? 

We  come   now   to  consider  the   vast  evils    which  are 
effected  by  this  process  of  deception  in  the  world. 


28  Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects. 


Its  evil  consequences  are  to  be  judged  of  by  their 
nature  and  extent. 

Their  nature  is  unfolded  in  the  fact  that  the  distinction 
between  moral  good  and  evil  which  God  has  proclaimed 
to  his  creatures — a  distinction  forever  true  and  unchange- 
able— is  made  by  him  the  basis  on  which  he  reposes  his 
own  honor  as  the  Ruler  of  the  Universe  ;  on  which  he 
establishes  the  peace  and  joy  of  his  kingdom  ;  on  which 
he  secures  the  salvation  of  souls.  Against  all  these  high 
and  endless  interests  therefore,  the  blow  is  leveled  which 
seeks  to  destroy  that  distinction  between  moral  good  and 
evil  which  is  the  foundation  on  which  they  all  rest. 

He,  therefore,  who  aims  to  pervert  the  distinctions 
between  good  and  evil,  does  injustice  to  God,  to  the 
interests  of  society,  and  the  spiritual  welfare  of  indi- 
viduals, and  the  more  and  farther  he  prevails,  the  wider 
is  the  extent  of  the  mischief. 

He  does  injustice  to  God.  His  great  name  is  dis- 
honored and  blasphemed  as  the  author  of  falsehood  and 
confusion :  his  government,  with  its  laws  and  sanctions, 
is  rebelled  against  and  invaded  :  the  kingdom  of  light  and 
holiness  and  peace  which  his  grace  has  set  up  among  us 
by  his  Son  in  the  midst  of  our  rebellions,  is  hindered  in 
its  progress. 

He  does  injury  to  society.  The  foundations  of  its 
security  are  shaken.  Rapine,  lust,  fraud,  deceit,  violence, 
are  sent  forth  by  him  to  fatten  on  their  spoils ;  and  justice, 
integrity,  truth,  the  fear  of  God,  are  hunted  and  cried 
down  as  enemies  :  till  lands,  fitted  to  rejoice  as  the  garden 
of  God,  are  desolate  ;  and  heaven  weeps,  and  earth 
mourns,  over  innocence  slain  and  equity  prostrate. 

He  does  injury  to  the  spiritual  welfare  of  individuals. 
He  meets  the  ignorant,  inconsiderate,  worldly  wanderer 
from  God  whom  a  Saviour  is  inviting  back  to  forgiveness 
and  to  rest.  He  commits  him,  and  enrolls  him,  the  son  of 
perdition.  A  lie  is  received,  and  grasped  in  his  right 
hand  as  his  treasure  and  defense.  His  way  to  destruc- 
tion is  made  easy  and  sure.  Onward  he  goes  to  the  gates 
of  death.  He  dies  an  outcast  from  God.  The  pangs  of  a 


of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects.  29 


just  condemnation  seize  upon  his  soul.  He  finds  out  the 
cheat  too  late  ;  deceived  by  false  names  of  virtue  and  of 
evil,  he  is  forever  fallen.  O,  that  any,  charmed  by  false 
names  of  wisdom,  should  forever  part  with  the  substance  ; 
that  any  for  fear  of  being  called  fools  in  the  scoffs  of  the 
ungodly,  should  make  themselves  such  in  reality  to  all 
eternity  ! 

To  how  wide  an  extent  this  mischief  is  carried  on  in 
our  world  may  be  seen  by  a  survey  of  the  kingdom  of 
darkness :  a  kingdom  which  has  its  oldest  and  firmest  seat 
in  the  lands  of  idolatry,  which  extends  over  the  adherents 
of  the  false  prophet,  and  embraces  all  within  the  light  of 
Christian  lands  who  retain  the  mark  and  the  practices  and 
worship  the  images  of  the  great  Beast  of  Idolatry  in  the 
earth — a  kingdom  built  on  error — sustained  by  sophistry 
and  deception— in  which  evil  is  called  good  and  good  evil. 
What  hecatombs  of  ruined  men,  of  ruined  nations,  lie 
before  us  :  whom  Satan  the  god  of  this  world  hath  blinded 
and  deceived  in  person  and  by  his  emissaries,  and  whom 
he  will  continue  to  deceive  till  Christ  shall  come,  in  the 
brightness  of  his  spiritual  dominion  over  all,  to  drive  him 
away  and  enchain  him,  that  he  go  out  to  deceive  the 
nations  no  more. 

I  have  thus  set  before  you,  as  I  intended,  the  ground  of 
the  woe  denounced  against  him  who  calls  evil  good  and 
good  evil — that  the  distinction  between  moral  good  and 
evil,  set  up  by  the  Creator  being  founded  in  the  necessary 
tendency  they  have  to  promote  the  natural  good  and  evil 
of  beings,  is  in  its  own  nature  true  and  unchangeable  ;  and 
that  the  wrong  names  and  sophistical  reasonings  set  up 
by  men  which  confound  this  distinction  have  yet  great 
power  to  deceive  and  as  a  consequence  work  vast  evil. 

The  use  which  I  would  make  of  the  subject  as  I  con- 
clude, is  that  of  caution  against  deceiving  and  being 
deceived,  against  employing  the  arts  of  deception  and 
falling  under  their  power. 

We  have  been  looking  on  the  world  abroad  to  examine 
the  operations  of  deceit  that  are  in  it  in  reference  to 
moral  subjects,  and  to  behold  the  vast  evils  it  works 


3O  Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects. 


among  men.  Every  man  is  not  living  abroad  in  the  large 
world,  but  every  one  is  living  in  a  little  world  of  his  own  : 
and  influences  are  in  thousands  of  ways  coming  in  from 
the  larger  world  into  the  smaller  one  in  which  he  resides, 
and  going  out  from  his  circle  again  into  the  wider  circle 
of  humanity.  Every  one  is  therefore  capable  of  exerting 
a  wider  influence  upon  others  than  he  now  sees.  Every 
one  is  exposed  to  a  wider  reach  of  influence  from  others 
than  he  fully  apprehends. 

Beware  then  (i)  Against  deceiving  others.  Be  not  the 
advocate  of  error.  Advocate  nothing  at  any  time,  in  any 
place,  which  your  conscience  or  revelation  condemns. 
Your  words  of  error  and  sophistry  may  fall  on  the  ear  of 
some  soul  in  spiritual  ignorance,  inconsiderate  of  safety, 
inclining  to  evil,  and  enlist  and  secure  him  in  error — error 
that  shall  keep  him  from  Christ  and  holiness  and  land  him 
in  the  region  and  shadows  of  eternal  death.  Nor  does 
the  evil  stop  here.  The  evil  of  sin  is  as  the  plague  of 
leprosy.  The  soul  you  infect  goes  forth  and  spreads  the 
infection  in  the  wide  world.  There  are  atheists  and  infi- 
dels and  men  of  lax  morals  enough  in  the  world  already. 
Why  should  you  increase  the  number?  You  have  sins 
enough  to  answer  for  at  the  tribunal  of  God  already. 
Why  should  you  go  on  to  add  sin  to  sin  and  heap  to  your- 
self greater  condemnation  ?  No  ;  enlist  rather  at  once  un- 
der Christ,  the  great  Supporter  of  Truth  an-d  the  Author 
of  Salvation,  that  every  past  sin  may  be  forgiven  you. 
Be  the  firm  and  unflinching  advocate  of  truth  and  holi- 
ness. Represent  things  as  they  are.  Call  evil  evil,  and 
good  good.  Uphold  the  honor  of  God,  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  and  holiness,  advance  the  good  of  mankind  and  the 
salvation  of  souls,  and  take  your  reward  with  the  faithful 
in  heaven. 

Beware  again  (2)  Against  being  deceived  by  others. 
Fall  not  the  victim  of  error.  Be  not  over-confident 
in  your  own  wisdom,  lest  it  prove  your  folly  and  ruin. 
There  is  ignorance  and  inconsiderateness  and  perverse- 
ness  of  feeling  enough  cleaving  to  the  best,  to  expose 
them  to  deception ;  and  the  sophists  and  disputers  of  this 


Evil  of  Sophistry  on  Moral  Subjects.  3 1 


world,  meet  you  at  every  corner  and  turn  of  life.  If  you 
are  not  armed  for  safety,  you  will  be  ensnared,  deceived 
and  ruined  for  ever.  Fix  your  heart  then  forever  on  God 
the  source  of  life  and  safety,  trusting  in  Him  as  a  child. 
Take  the  plain  instructions  and  precepts  of  his  word  as 
your  guide,  its  promises  and  threatenings  as  your 
strength.  Learn  them,  consider  them,  love  them  more 
and  more  from  day  to  day.  Hold  them  fast,  amid  all  the 
sophistical  arguments  or  vulgar  ridicule  and  abuse  of  an 
ungodly  world.  Be  not  afraid  of  the  result.  Be  ye  sure 
the  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  its  prin- 
ciple and  support,  and  will  one  day  so  appear  to  his 
whole  kingdom.  If  you  cannot  answer  all  the  arguments 
of  the  subtle,  if  you  cannot  be  indifferent  wholly  to  the 
flatteries  and  scoffs  of  the  wicked,  still  believe  in  God, 
estimating  his  wisdom  above  their  sophistry,  prizing  his 
promises  and  threatenings  above  all  they  can  offer.  Be 
firm,  and  you  will  find  much  to  encourage  you  in  this 
world.  The  public  advocates  and  hearty  friends  of  God's 
truth  and  cause  are  many  to  strengthen  you  ;  and  they 
are  advancing  forward  continually  in  the  earth  froni  con- 
quest to  conquest.  Be  firm  in  these  days  of  assault  and 
trial,  and  when  the  day  of  God  shall  burst  upon  the  world, 
you  will  see  his  wisdom  triumph  gloriously  over  all  the 
machinations  of  the  perverse,  you  shall  be  crowned  as  his 
faithful  and  confiding  servant  before  his  kingdom. 


THE  DESTRUCTIVE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  TRANS- 
GRESSOR IN  A   COLLEGE. 


ECCLESIASTES,  IX  :  18. 

ONE    SINNER   DESTROYETH    MUCH    GOOD. 

THIS  is  a  truth  attested  by  universal  experience.  Its 
importance  is  apparent,  even  when  applied  to  him  who  is 
a  sinner  only  in  heart ;  who  is  destroying  his  own  soul, 
and  all  the  influence  of  the  counsel  and  care  bestowed 
upon  him  by  Jehovah  and  the  pious.  But  the  truth  as- 
sumes a  higher  importance  when  applied  to  the  open 
transgressor  ;  who  not  only  destroys  himself  but  becomes 
the  corrupter  of  those  around  him  ;  spreading  as  he  goes, 
a  wide  waste  of  moral  pestilence  and  death.  Applied  to 
such  an  one,  it  assumes  an  importance  corresponding  with 
the  stations  which  he  occupies  in  life,  and  the  means  and 
facilities  which  they  give  him  for  approaching  others  with 
his  polluting  society  and  example.  Witness  him  in  a 
family  ;  it  is  there  he  infects  the  springs  of  domestic  order 
and  happiness.  Witness  him  in  the  intercourse  of  friends  ; 
it  is  there  he  comes,  as  a  fiend  of  perdition,  to  destroy 
some  confiding  associate.  Witness  him  in  the  hall  of 
legislation  or  on  the  bench  of  judgment ;  it  is  there  he 
poisons  the  fountains  of  justice  as  they  flow  down  into 
the  community.  Follow  him  into  every  station ;  he  ap- 
pears in  all,  the  same  fiend  of  ruin,  destroying  every- 
where the  good  exposed  to  his  polluting  touch. 

But  I  shall  not  call  you  to  dwell  upon  what  the  open 
transgressor  may  do  to  destroy,  in  merely  imagined  cir- 
cumstances ;  I  would  bring  the  truth  much  nearer  home 
to  you,  and  apply  it  to  a  reality  often  witnessed  within 
the  precincts  of  this  College.  I  would  ask  you  candidly 

6 


34  Destructive  Influence  of  the 


and  seriously  to  hear  me,  while  I  attempt  to  portray 
the  truth  :  that  one  open  transgressor,  in  an  Institution  like 
this,  destroys  much  good. 

This  power  in  a  single  sinner  to  destroy  what  is  good 
is  manifest  even  in  this  sacred  retreat  of  science.  You 
are  here  assembled  in  a  miniature  world  of  your  own, 
withdrawn  from  that  outer  and  larger  world  that  sur- 
rounds you,  and  even  here  you  see  operating  on  a  scale  of 
less  extent  the  very  evils  in  their  germs  that  you  can  see 
grown  rife  and  mature  in  the  wider  circle  of  the  world 
that  surrounds  you. 

Will  you  not  allow  me  then  as  one  who  has  long  been 
conversant  with  the  interests  of  this  little  college  world, 
and  as  one  who  still  wishes  and  prays  for  the  welfare  of 
its  members,  to  set  the  truth  of  our  text  before  you,  as  it 
is  exemplified  in  such  a  circle  as  yours — the  society  gath- 
ered within  the  walls  and  occupied  in  the  peaceful  pursuits 
of  a  College. 

Let  me  show  you  that  one  sinner  here  has  great  power 
to  destroy,  and  that  the  good  which  he  destroys  here  is 
peculiarly  great. 

I.   One  transgressor  among  you  Jias  great  power  to  destroy. 

He  comes  with  his  habits  of  dissipation,  intemperance, 
debauchery,  gambling,  into  a  society  which,  in  some  re- 
spects, is  very  open  to  his  influence.  For  he  unites  himself 
here  to  a  circle  of  the  young  and  inexperienced  ;  open 
in  their  confidence  ;  absent  from  parental  restraint,  and 
surrounded  by  many  facilities  and  encouragements  to 
lead  them  into  the  practice  of  all  these  vices.  He  uses 
his  enticements  and  example  with  companions  whose 
peculiar  circumstances  strongly  favor  him  in  obtaining 
a  victory  over  their  minds. 

He  enters  here  into  the  circle  of  the  young  and  inex- 
perienced. Youth  and  inexperience,  it  is  well  known,  are 
circumstances  always  favoring  temptation.  Youth  is 
sportive ;  buoyant  in  its  feelings  ;  bright  in  its  hopes ; 
eager  after  its  pleasures  ;  unestablished  in  its  principles. 
Experience  has  not  yet  come  to  trace  out  actions  with 
faithful  hand,  to  their  remote  results  and  consequences  ; 


Transgressor  in  a  College.  35 


to  instil  her  sober  views  of  life ;  to  mould  the  character 
into  distinct  and  stable  form.  Is  it  strange  that  minds 
thus  quick  to  receive  every  impression,  thus  open  to 
every  influence,  should  be  an  easier  prey  to  the  contagion 
of  a  vicious  companion  ?  When  I  see  one  person  of  dis- 
sipated life  and  habits — living  and  moving  in  your  circle, 
I  feel  that  he  has  great  facilities  for  carrying  on  the  work 
of  destruction  among  you.  He  is  not  easy  in  sin  without 
companions  ;  and  his  polluting  enticements  he  spreads 
before  those  who,  though  not  in  extremest  youth,  are  in 
that  middle  stage  between  it  and  manhood,  which  com- 
bines all  the  quickness  of  youth  to  receive  impression  and 
habit,  with  all  the  strength  of  manhood  to  retain  it ;  and 
I  fear  that  he  will  achieve  at  once,  an  easy  and  a  perma- 
nent victory. 

Again,  such  a  transgressor  within  your  circle  is  con- 
joined to  a  fraternity  most  open  in  their  confidence.  The 
person  who  has  never  been  united  to  such  an  institution, 
scarcely  conceives  what  strong  bonds  of  confidence  are 
intertwined  amongst  its  members.  Equal  nearly  in  age, 
engaged  in  the  same  general  pursuits,  daily  associated  in 
the  same  public  exercises,  hourly  sharing  in  the  same 
trials  and  enjoyments,  they  view  each  other  only  in  this 
common  relation.  The  distinctions  of  wealth,  family, 
character  even,  disappear.  All  hearts  are  interwoven 
into  one  common  woof.  An  openness  and  familiarity  of 
all-reposing  confidence,  renders  every  heart  accessible. 
Classmate  is  but  another  name  for  brother.  Even  the 
little  feuds  and  strifes  that  occasionally  arise,  dissolve 
under  the  power  of  its  charm.  Is  it  strange,  then,  that  in 
a  society  so  open  and  unsuspecting  in  their  confidence, 
he  who  comes  as  a  destroyer  should  easily  obtain  victims 
to  his  sins  and  associates  with  him  in  vice  ?  Into  what 
room  may  he  not  enter  and  sit  down  with  you  as  your 
companion  ?  Into  what  ear  may  he  not  whisper  his  cor- 
rupting persuasions?  And  who  that  is  not  steeled  with 
that  fortitude  of  moral  principle  which  says  at  once,  like 
the  Saviour,  to  every  temptation,  come  it  from  whom  it 
may :  "  Get  thee  behind  me  Satan ;"  who  else  will  not 


36  Destructive  Influence  of  the 


feel  the  strength  of  that  bond  which  unites  him  to  a  class- 
mate, and  be  drawn  by  it  to  listen  to  his  suggestions  and 
to  consent  to  his  guilty  proposals. 

Again,  such  a  transgressor  here  is  united  to  a  society  of 
youths  who  are  absent  from  parental  restraint  and  watch- 
fulness. What  power  has  a  father's  friendship,  and  a 
mother's  pure  and  deep  love,  to  check  the  waywardness 
of  youth  and  to  guide  it  with  the  wisdom  of  experience  ! 
I  have  seen  the  youth  dwelling  under  their  roof;  nur- 
tured by  their  care ;  watched  by  their  eye ;  guarded 
by  their  love ;  and  have  felt  that  next  to  the  bond  of 
heaven's  authority  and  love,  theirs  is  the  strongest,  the 
purest.  What,  when  they  place  the  son  of  their  hopes 
in  an  institution  like  this,  remote  from  their  eye,  shall 
supply  the  place  of  their  watchfulness?  Its  appointed 
guardians  may  exert  a  parental  watchfulness  over  him  ; 
but  it  shall  not  touch  his  heart  like  the  eye  of  father  and 
mother.  When  the  seducer  of  his  morals  comes  to  meet 
him  here  with  his  enticements,  his  father  may  be  thinking 
of  him  with  deep  solicitude,  his  mother  may  be  praying 
for  his  welfare  with  heart-broken  agonies.  But  he  is  far 
from  their  presence.  The  eye  of  a  father  bent  on  him  in 
its  sternness,  or  of  a  mother  beaming  upon  him  in  its 
love,  might  nerve  him  to  say  'no'  to  his  enticer,  to  refuse 
uniting  with  him  in  his  unworthy  proposals.  But  the 
corrupter  assails  him  afar  from  the  parental  roof.  The 
tempter  here  finds  him,  removed  from  the  watchfulness 
of  those  hearts  that  would  bleed  most  deeply  over  his 
downfall.  And  the  temptations  which  youth  and  confi- 
dence favor,  are  thus  strengthened  by  the  absence  of 
parental  restraint. 

Again,  the  destructive  power  of  the  transgressor  here 
is  increased  by  the  facilities  and  encouragement  for  dissipa- 
tion which  surround  the  Institution.  Were  all  those  who 
surround  our  literary  institutions  as  faithful  as  their  offi- 
cers, or  the  parents  of  their  pupils,  to  withhold  from  them 
the  means  and  discountenance  them  in  the  practice  of 
dissipation,  the  transgressor  within  their  walls  would 
not  have  that  power  which  he  now  has  to  lead  others 


Transgressor  in  a  College.  37 


with  him  into  polluting  and  forbidden  pleasures.  With- 
out a  haunt  to  which  he  might  lead  his  victims,  inspected 
by  eyes  which  would  frown  upon  him  with  indignation  ; 
his  polluting  influence  would  be  checked;  and  youths, 
otherwise  exposed,  be  rescued  from  his  grasp.  But  ah  ! 
it  is  a  sad  story  that  here  the  young  and  inexperienced, 
confiding  in  each  other,  and  removed  from  parental  in- 
spection, are  drawn  and  lured  away  by  the  facilities  and 
encouragements  to  dissipation  which  are  brought  around 
the  very  walls  of  their  habitation.  How  many  for  the 
sake  of  receiving  the  money  of  the  young,  will  adminis- 
ter to  their  guilty  pleasures  and  vices ;  see  their  morals 
debauched ;  encourage  their  enticements  over  one  an- 
other, and  be  accessory  to  this  progressive  ruin  of  souls  ! 
When  was  there  ever  an  institution  like  this  planted  any 
where,  but  these  harpies  of  ruin  hovered  around  it  on 
their  filthy  pinions  ?  "  Through  covetousness  and  with 
feigned  words  "  "  they  make  merchandise  of  you," — the 
dreadful  traffic  of  your  souls  for  their  gains.  What 
power  do  these  give  the  person  of  dissipated  habits 
among  you  to  destroy.  Money  only  is  needed  ;  and  the 
pleasures  to  which  he  entices  you,  however  guilty  and 
polluting,  are  readily  administered,  The  transgressor 
is  thus  often  countenanced,  encouraged,  animated,  in  his 
work  of  temptation  and  ruin,  by  external  accessories, 
who  are  interested  both  to  aid  in  sin  and  to  screen  from 
detection. 

Such  are  the  circumstances  relative  to  college  life 
which  show  how  great  is  the  destructive  power  of  a 
single  corrupt  and  vicious  student  over  his  companions ; 
that  he  brings  his  temptations  to  the  young  and  inexper- 
ienced ;  who  repose  the  utmost  confidence  in  him  ;  who 
are  far  removed  from  the  watchful  eye  of  their  parents ; 
and  who  are  surrounded  from  without  the  institution  by 
those  who  favor  the  pleasures  of  vice  and  guilty  dissipa- 
tion. 

Let  me  show  you  now, 

II.  That  the  good  ^LV hie Ji  a  transgressor  succeeds  to  destroy 
here,  is  peculiarly  great.  He  always  destroys  much  good  : 


38  Destructive  Influence  of  the 


in  the  immediate  victims  of  his  corruption  ;  in  the  Insti- 
tution of  which  he  is  a  member  ;  in  the  families  to  whose 
sons  he  has  access ;  in  the  community  among  whose 
rising-  hopes  he  dwells. 

i.   He  destroys  much  good  in  the  victim  of  Jiis  corruption. 

The  youthful  student  here,  bright  in  talent,  high  in 
hope,  presents  a  spectacle,  to  all,  of  no  ordinary  interest. 
He  is  justly  regarded  as  one  who  is  to  participate  in 
higher  responsibilities  in  life,  and  to  engage  in  wider  and 
more  efficient  spheres  of  action  than  the  companions 
whom  he  has  left  at  the  plough,  at  the  anvil,  at  the  coun- 
ter. At  any  rate  he  enters  upon  great  privileges  which 
are  denied  to  them,  and  for  which  he  must  give  account. 

The  dissipated  youth,  who  seduces  a  companion  here 
to  unite  with  him  in  his  vices  and  guilty  pleasures,  seizes 
on  a  victim  of  no  ordinary  interest,  and  brings  upon  him. 
no  ordinary  ruin. 

He  is  the  destroyer  of  literary  attainment.  The  inebri- 
ating cup,  the  noisy  revel,  the  lewd  debauch,  hold  no 
communion  with  the  room  of  sobriety,  the  table  of  study, 
the  lamp  of  diligence,  the  page  of  learning  and  lore. 
Intemperate  and  guilty  pleasures  debilitate  the  body, 
clog  the  mind,  indispose  both  for  study,  reduce  the  whole 
man  to  the  indolence  and  apathy  of  the  brutes.  The 
victory  of  a  sinner  over  his  companion  here,  is  a  victory 
over  his  attainments  ;  the  defeat  of  his  diligence  ;  the 
perversion  of  his  privileges. 

He  is  the  destroyer  of  character.  The  victim  of  his 
enticements  is  led  to  pleasures  which  sear  the  conscience  ; 
stifle  each  generous  sensibility  of  the  heart ;  eradicate 
the  principles  of  virtue  ;  and  reduce  the  man  in  subjec- 
tion to  their  imperious  power.  The  misled  youth  has 
entered  into  the  haunts  of  guilty  pleasure ;  he  has  enrol- 
led his  name  among  her  votaries  ;  he  has  dedicated  him- 
self at  her  altars;  she  will  never  give  him  a  discharge 
from  her  dominion  ;  he  will  never  satiate  her  with  his 
offerings :  he  must  surrender  to  her  his  conscience,  his 
principles,  his  character. 

He  is  the  destroyer  of  temporal  prospects.     What  hopes 


Transgressor  in  a  College.  39 


might  have  dawned  upon  the  youth  before  he  fell  into 
the  fangs  of  his  destroyer !  The  prospect  of  entering 
upon  life,  with  health,  with  attainments,  with  reputation 
and  character;  opening  before  him  the  avenues  to  the 
confidence,  the  respect,  the  love  of  his  fellow  men  !  But 
ah  !  his  destroyer  has  blasted  these  hopes ;  and  delivered 
him  over  to  his  parents  and  the  community,  without 
attainment  and  without  principle,  an  idler  and  a  sot,  to  be 
henceforth  bloated  and  deformed  by  his  lusts  ;  with  no 
other  prospects  for  life  than  those  which  the  wise  man 
assures  us  belong  to  him  u  that  loveth  pleasure  " — "  he 
shall  be  poor" — the  prospect  of  poverty  in  character,  in 
estate,  in  reputation,  in  public  confidence,  in  peace  of 
mind  ;  until  he  reach  the  grave. 

He  is  the  destroyer  of  the  soul,  for  the  drunkard  is 
disinherited  from  the  kingdom  of  God.  Earth  has  no 
language  nor  any  similitude  adequate  to  describe  a  ruin 
like  this.  An  immortal  mind  debased  ;  its  endless  aspir- 
ings disappointed  ;  its  recreant  energies  recoiling  in  an- 
ger on  itself;  a  heaven  of  glory  lost ;  a  hell  of  speechless 
agony  forever  endured  ;  these  are  the  melancholy  parts 
of  such  a  ruin.  Oh  how  little  apprehended  and  known  in 
this  world  !  Is  it  not  enough  for  any  one  of  you  to  go 
alone  into  these  everlasting  burnings?  Must  you  take 
with  you  some  hapless  companion  ?  Will  you  select  him 
from  this  group  and  bear  him  away  from  these  high  priv- 
ileges to  take  the  lowest  place  in  hell,  and  endure  the 
fiercest  flames  of  wrath  ? 

Such  destruction  does  the  sinner  here  bring  upon  the 
victim  of  his  corruption  :  But, 

2.  He  destroys  much  good  in  the  Institution  of  which  he 
is  a  member. 

An  institution  like  this,  founded  in  piety  and  prayer, 
nurtured  by  the  wise  and  the  good,  consecrated  to  Christ 
and  his  cause,  and  embosoming  in  it  the  hopes  of  the 
Church  and  the  State,  is  an  institution  of  most  sacred 
character ;  which  calls  upon  all  who  are  in  any  way  con- 
nected with  it  to  guard  it  from  injury,  to  further  its 
design,  to  aid  in  its  prosperity.  The  stealthy  transgres- 


40  Destructive  Influence  of  the 

sor  who  becomes  a  member  of  it,  who  brings  the  pollu- 
ting and  destructive  influence  of  his  vices  into  the 
community,  vitally  assails  its  welfare.  Though  bound, 
in  entering  upon  its  privileges,  to  unite  with  its  instruct- 
ors, its  official  guardians  and  its  pupils  in  securing  the 
great  and  good  ends  of  its  establishment ;  he  comes  not  to 
build  but  to  destroy. 

He  destroys  the  influence  of  its  instructions.  Here  men 
are  stationed  by  Providence  in  the  laborious  office  of 
imparting  instruction.  They  are  laboring  to  communi- 
cate lessons  of  knowledge  and  wisdom  and  piety  for  the 
good  of  the  community.  With  pains,  with  watchings, 
with  prayers,  they  open  to  you  the  fountains  of  human 
and  divine  knowledge  ;  and  never  do  they  reap  a  richer 
reward  than  when  they  see  their  instructions  distilling 
on  the  mind  with  fertilizing  influence  as  the  dew,  ripen- 
ing youth  into  the  glories  of  an  intelligent,  wise,  and 
virtuous  manhood.  But  the  open  transgressor  sets  at 
nought  these  counsels  and  instructions :  he  leads  the 
victims  of  his  corruption  to  unite  with  him  in  passing 
them  heedlessly  by  ;  and  his  heart  and  tongue  are  enlisted 
in  destroying  widely  around  him  the  moral  and  religious 
bearing  of  these  instructions,  on  the  mind  of  his  fellow 
students. 

He  destroys  the  prevalence  of  its  laws.  Those  salutary 
regulations  and  restraints  which  its  wise  and  faithful 
guardians  have  enacted  to  secure  that  order  which  is 
vital  to  its  welfare,  are  bonds  as  light  to  his  conscience  as 
the  web  of  the  spider :  for  pleasure,  intemperate  and  pol- 
luting, knows  no  law  ;  abides  no  restraint ;  breaks  through 
every  wholesome  regulation  ;  and  riots  in  her  own  lawless 
sportings.. 

He  destroys  the  health  of  its  morals.  The  morals  of  a 
community  are  composed  of  the  morals  of  its  members  ; 
and  he  and  the  victims  of  his  enticement  are  dissolute. 
Every  such  member  therefore  swells  the  amount  of  sins 
and  transgressions  in  this  little  community.  He  also  does 
much  to  lower  the  general  tone  of  moral  sentiment ;  for 
that  dread  of  vice  never  too  quick,  that  aversion  to  it 


Transgressor  in  a  College.  41 


never  too  strong,  which  are  necessary  to  guard  the  mor- 
als, are  in  his  presence  and  daily  familiarity  relaxed  and 
softened  down  by  the  power  of  sympathy.  One  such 
sinner  shall  do  much  to  weaken  in  almost  every  breast  the 
sentiment  of  abhorrence  and  indignation  felt  at  vice.  If 
they  "  embrace  "  not  "  the  monster  "  at  the  first,  yet, 

"  familiar  with  her  face, 
They  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace." 

He  destroys  the  vigor  of  its  piety.  I  would  hope  that 
no  such  transgressor  could  ever  prevail  on  one  of  this 
little  flock,  named  after  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  directly  to  follow  him  and  unite  with  him  in  his 
guilty  pleasures.  Yet,  relaxing  the  tone  of  moral  senti- 
ment as  he  goes,  he  prowls  around  the  sacred  enclosure 
of  the  Church  ;  and  if  he  obtain  no  victims  from  it  he 
often  inspires,  in  the  less  established  and  the  less  vigorous, 
the  fear  of  assuming  an  unpopular  firmness  and  decision  of 
religious  character.  Even  the  most  established  and  the 
most  vigorous  in  the  body,  at  times,  witnessing  the  im- 
moralities without  and  the  decay  of  religious  sentiment 
within  ;  find  their  hopes  discouraged,  their  ardor  damp- 
ened, their  faith  weakened  and  almost  yielding  to  despair. 

He  destroys  the  soundness  of  its  reputation.  For  what 
deeper  wound  can  he  inflict  on  its  honor  than  that  which 
is  aimed  at  its  instructions,  its  order,  its  morals,  its  piety  ? 

Such  is  the  destruction  which  he  brings  into  the  institu- 
tion of  which  he  is  a  member  ;  But, 

3.  He  destroys  much  good  in  the  families  to  whose  sons 
he  here  has  access. 

The  thought  is  full  of  interest  to  every  one  who  is  a 
member  in  an  institution  like  this,  as  he  looks  around  on 
his  fellow  students,  that  he  is  admitted  into  the  confidence 
and  bosom  of  almost  as  many  families,  scattered  over  this 
extensive  country.  Each  student  with  whom  he  is  in  the 
habit  of  daily  and  familiar  intercourse,  has  a  father  or 
mother ;  perhaps,  some  friendly  brother  ;  or  affectionate 
sister;  who  contemplate,  in  him,  the  son  of  their  hopes, 
or  the  brother  of  their  pride  and  joy.  Each  youth  here 

7 


42  Destructive  Influence  of  the 


should  feel  that  his  influence  has  this  extensive  bearing 
on  relations  so  sacred,  so  touching.  Every  one,  be  it 
remembered,  who  is  dissipated  in  his  habits  and  corrupt 
in  his  morals,  brings  a  moral  pestilence  into  the  bosom  of 
all  these  families  scattered  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  our  vast  country.  He  carries,  into  all  these 
sacred  enclosures  of  domestic  love,  a  heart  more  cruel 
than  the  grave,  to  destroy  their  peace,  their  counsels, 
their  hopes. 

He  destroys  their  peace.  For  they  feel  that  the  sons  of 
their  prayers  and  hopes/are  exposed  to  the  polluting 
venom  of  his  example  /and  enticements.  A  thousand 
anxieties  crowd  around'  their  hearts  as  they  watch  over 
the  course  of  their  absent  children  ;  as  they  receive  from 
time  to  time  intelligence  of  their  progress:  for  they  know 
that  a  pestilence  is  near  them  that  may  give  them  its 
deadly  contagion,  that  an  enemy  is  nigh  them  ready  to 
devour.  How  would  it  relieve  the  anxieties  of  these 
households,  what  peace  and  confidence  would  dawn  on 
their  again  happy  circles,  were  it  known  to  them  that  no 
such  wolves  were  prowling  in  ambush  among  their  sons! 
that  every  individual  of  corrupt  habits  here,  were 
searched  out,  reproved,  humbled  before  all  in  deep 
repentance,  or  else  excluded  from  all  ;  and  that  the 
hearts  of  all  this  body  were  set,  as  a  munition  of  rocks, 
against  the  inroads  of  every  vice  and  iniquity  ! 

He  destroys  their  counsels.  The  parents  of  these 
youth,  many  of  them,  have  instructed  and  warned  them 
from  their  infancy.  In  tears  and  with  many  prayers,  they 
have  often  administered  to  them  the  counsels  of  faithful- 
ness and  love.  But  ah !  what  shall  become  of  all  their 
admonitions  ?  Their  son  is  far  removed  from  their  pre- 
sence ;  and  nigh  him,  in  the  garb  of  confidence  and 
friendship,  dwells  the  destroyer;  ever  ready  to  distil  into 
his  ear  his  polluting  enticements ;  and  to  lead  him,  with 
the  basest  ingratitude  to  forget  his  father  arid  the  mother 
who  bore  him,  and  trample  on  all  their  counsels. 

He  destroys  their  hopes.  Come,  go  with  me  to  the 
family  whose  son  the  corrupter  has  here  led  astray  into 


Transgressor  in  a  College.  43 

intemperance.  It  is  the  house  of  mourning ;  but  not 
for  the  dead — for  the  worse  than  dead — the  living  buried 
in  his  pollutions.  See,  as  we  enter  it,  what  mortification, 
what  grief,  what  despair,  are  depicted  on  the  counten- 
ances of  the  family  group  :  for  he  whom  they  loved, 
whom  they  labored  and  prayed  for,  they  have  heard  has 
fallen  a  victim  to  intemperate  and  polluting  pleasures  ; 
such  as  ruin  his  diligence,  his  character,  his  prospects,  his 
soul.  Let  the  corrupter  go  before  us ;  and  in  our  pre- 
sence, deliver  over  to  this  afflicted  family  their  ruined 
child,  his  victim.  Let  his  eye  meet  the  father's  brow  of 
burning  indignation  ;  the  mother's  lip  of  quivering  an- 
guish ;  the  brother's,  the  sister's  eye,  swollen  with 
agony  !  Listen,  while  the  father,  in  behalf  of  this  afflicted 
circle,  pours  forth  the  language  of  despair,  over  hopes 
for  ever  blasted,  a  child  forever  lost  !  The  love,  the  cares, 
the  labors  that  from  dawning  infancy  had  showered  their 
blessings  on  the  child,  rush  to  his  heart ;  his  future  course 
of  increasing  shame  and  infamy,  fill  h;s  apprehensions ; 
and  on  you,  the  corrupter  of  his  child,  he  fastens  the 
stigma  of  that  deep  ingratitude  and  ruin,  which  are  to 
fill  his  heart  and  the  hearts  of  his  household,  with  sorrow, 
on  their  future  journey  to  the  grave. 

Such  is  the  destruction  which  the  sinner  here  brings 
into  the  families  to  whose  sons  he  has  access  ; 

But,  once  more, 

4.  He  destroys  much  good,  in  the  community  at  large 
among  whose  rising  hopes  he  here  dwells. 

Need  I  remind  you  that  they  who  dwell  together  here, 
will  soon  vacate  these  seats ;  and,  bidding  one  another 
farewell,  disperse  everywhere  over  the  face  of  this 
country  :  that  on  them  will  devolve  many  important 
stations  in  life,  many  weighty  concerns  in  the  community. 
To  these  retreats  of  science  the  state  looks,  the  church 
looks,  for  their  supports,  their  pillars,  their  ornaments : 
for  here  dwell  the  hopes  of  our  country,  the  youth  of  her 
pride,  disciplined  and  trained  for  her  future  service. 
Your  influence  here,  therefore,  extends  beyond  the  com- 
panions with  whom  you  associate  ;  beyond  the  institu- 


44  Destructive  Influence  of  the 


tion  which  fosters  you  ;  beyond  the  families  who  have 
introduced  their  sons  to  your  confidence — it  extends  to 
your  wide  country  and  the  world.  Every  one  whom  you 
lead  into  ways  of  wisdom  and  virtue  here,  you  deliver 
over  to  the  com  muni  ty  of  your  fellow  men  as  an  angel  of 
mercy  and  blessing  :  every  one  whom  you  pollute  with 
intemperance  and  lust,  you  hand  over  to  it,  as  a  demon  of 
wrath  and  cursing.  You  have  led  a  companion  into  in- 
temperance :  see  how  far  that  destruction  extends  among 
your  fellow  men. 

You  have  disqualified  your  victim  for  every  useful  station. 
Is  he  to  be  a  husband  ?  Bloated  with  intemperance,  he 
takes  his  lovely  and  confiding  partner,  only  to  wound  her 
with  his  cruelties  and  to  burden  her  with  his  disgrace. 
Is  he  to  be  a  father?  The  children  whom  God  hath 
given  him,  unblessed  b}T  his  counsels  or  prayers,  live  to 
witness  his  infamy,  to  bear  his  rage,  to  be  corrupted  by 
his  example.  Is  he  a  neighbor  ?  The  families  which 
surround  him  have  no  enjoyment  in  his  presence ;  but 
dread  him  as  a  monster,  shun  him  as  a  pestilence.  Is  he 
a  magistrate?  Alas,  if  any  can  so  elevate  him,  his  intem- 
perance, if  it  corrupt  not  justice,  gives  sway  and  currency 
to  the  same  desolating  vice  in  the  community. 

You  have  withdrawn  him  from  every  good  work.  His 
intemperate  pleasures  demand  his  time,  his  attention,  his 
property.  On  these  will  he  wait,  though  every  work  of 
religion  and  humanity  in  the  world  around  him  should 
cease.  What  will  he  do  on  the  earth  for  Christ  ?  That  much 
loved  name,  the  fountain  of  our  hopes  for  eternity,  his 
lips  of  pollution  praise  not.  What  for  the  Church  ?  Re- 
deemed and  adorned  by  Christ,  she  stands  forth  the 
pattern  of  religion,  the  expectant  of  glory  :  but  he  comes 
not  himself,  he  brings  none  within  her  sacred  portals  of 
salvation.  What  for  ignorant,  oppressed,  or  suffering 
humanity  ?  The  calls  of  intemperance  are  too  loud  and 
urgent  for  him  to  turn  aside  to  bless  the  needy  ! 

You  have  devoted  him  to  the  work  of  ruin.  He  came 
here  a  sober  and  lovely  youth  ;  you  have  sent  him  forth 
into  the  community  of  your  fellow-men,  a  drunkard,  a 


Transgressor  in  a  College.  45 


prowling  enemy,  ready  to  devour.  What  will  he  not  do 
in  his  fits  of  intoxication  ?  Without  reason  ;  without 
conscience  ;  a  delirium  is  on  his  brain  ;  his  passions  are 
dark  and  wild  as  the  whirlwind.  As  well  uncage  the 
monarch  of  the  forests,  and  send  him  forth  to  dwell  in 
amity  with  men.  What  is  he,  in  more  sober  moments  ? 
An  idler  at  best  ;  without  employment ;  free  to  be  occu- 
pied with  schemes  of  evil.  A  vagabond,  perhaps  ;  dis- 
gusting all  with  his  presence,  wearying  all  with  his  wants. 
A  gamester  ;  enticing  others  to  the  card  or  billiard  table, 
that  he  may  gather  spoils  from  the  wreck  of  their  for- 
tunes. A  seducer;  leading  by  his  falsehoods  the  hapless 
female  astray  to  mourn,  in  unavailing  agony,  the  ruin  of 
her  virtue.  A  robber,  become  desperate  through  want. 
A  murderer,  rendered  furious  by  resistance,  The  picture 
is  not  too  deep  and  melancholy  to  be  realized  ;  even  by 
those  who  are  elevated  to  the  advantages  of  this  favored 
spot,  who  take  to  their  mouths  the  inebriating  cup  and 
enkindle  in  their  appetites  an  unquenchable  flame.  I 
knew  a  student  once,  my  equal  and  companion  ;  (others 
might  select  examples  to  fill  out  other  shades  of  the  pic- 
ture ;)  who  here  began  to  unite  with  companions  only  in 
occasional  acts  of  intemperance.  His  appetite  raged  ;  it 
became  imperious  ;  he  relinquished  every  useful  station  ; 
he  abandoned  every  good  work  ;  he  roved  a  vagabond 
over  the  face  of  the  land  ;  and  a  burden  to  society,  \vhile 
living ;  he  died,  if  I  am  rightly  informed,  by  the  way-side, 
neglected  and  alone  ! 

From  the  thoughts  I  have  now  presented  to  you,  is  it 
not  obvious,  that  the  good  which  a  transgressor  destroys 
here,  is  peculiarly  great  ?  He  deals  his  blows  at  advan- 
tage, against  interests  most  precious.  Impressed  with 
this  momentous  truth,  I  feel  myself  impelled  to  speak  out 
its  admonitions  to  you  with  the  utmost  candor  and 
plainness. 

Is  there  any  youth  here  who  has  been  enticing  his  com- 
panions into  scenes  of  dissipation  f 

Young  man,  whoever  thou  art,  I  charge  thee  before 
God  and  this  youthful  assembly,  consider,  seriously,  what 


46  Destructive  Influence  of  the 

thou  hast  done.  You  have  approached  a  youth  in  his 
ardor  and  inexperience.  You  have  come  nigh  him  in  the 
garb  of  confidence  and  friendship.  You  have  met  him  at 
distance  from  the  eye  of  parental  watchfulness,  and  with 
opportunities  surrounding  you  to  screen  his  guilt  and 
yours.  And  what  have  you  done  ?  You  have  led  him  to 
quaff  deep  the  inebriating  cup  ;  to  enter  into  the  pollu- 
ting embrace  of  the  harlot.  You  have  kindled  a  fever  in 
his  appetites  that  shall  burn  as  hell.  You  have  sprung  a 
mine,  whose  devastation  shall  spread  far  and  wide,  carry- 
ing grief  and  desolation  to  many  hearts. 

Come,  face  the  account  that  lies  recorded  against  thee 
in  the  book  of  God.  The  account  shall  meet  thee  at 
another  day,  in  an  assembly  far  more  solemn  and  impos- 
ing. Meet  it  now.  Stare  at  each  item  in  the  dark  cata- 
logue of  ruin,  till  it  make  thee  tremble.  Let  the  arrows 
of  the  Almighty,  the  Avenger  of  the  injured,  pierce  thee, 
now,  with  salutary  smart.  Repent  of  this,  thy  wicked- 
ness. Humble  thyself  before  God  and  all  those  youth, 
who  may  have  witnessed  thy  faults.  And  like  an  angel 
of  rescuing  mercy,  flee  at  once  to  thy  victim.  Pluck 
him,  if  thou  canst,  from  the  devouring  flame.  Unbind 
from  his  hands  and  feet,  the  manacles  and  fetters  of  sin. 
Restore  him  to  himself,  to  this  institution,  to  his  aggrieved 
family,  to  his  injured  country  ;  a  man  of  sobriety  and 
virtue,  the  benefactor  and  not  the  curse  of  mankind.  And 
instead  of  the  sorrow  and  mourning  that  now  fill  so  many 
hearts,  a  wide  jubilee  of  joy  shall  be  proclaimed  over 
thee,  in  heaven  and  on  earth. 

Is  there  a  dissipated  youth  here,  who  is  determined  to 
continue  in  his  course  of  dissipation  ? 

I  would  hope  that  considerations,  suggested  by  a  sub- 
ject like  this,  would  break  down  such  a  determination  in 
every  mind  ;  would  lead  such  an  one  to  serious  reflection, 
to  a  better  resolution,  to  a  thorough  reformation.  But, 
if  he  will  persist  in  his  dissipation  ;  if,  in  defiance  of  every 
motive  which  can  be  urged  of  religion  or  humanity,  he 
must  continue  to  riot  in  his  polluting  pleasures  ;  I  know 
not  what  counsel  I  can  better  give  such  a  pupil  than  that 


Transgressor  in  a  College.  47 


he  abandon  his  vices  at  once,  and  seek  healing  at  the 
fount  of  mercy  ;  or,  if  he  will  not  do  this,  that  he  with- 
draw at  once  from  this  retreat  of  science — this  depository 
of  most  sacred  hopes.  If  he  must  be  dissipated,  he 
would  better  be  anything  than  a  student.  Let  him  go, 
and  choose,  from  the  laborious  occupations  of  society,  his 
employment;  it  will  be  honorable  for  him  to  labor,  and 
safe  to  withdraw  himself  from  temptation.  The  truck- 
man at  his  dray,  the  oyster-man  at  his  barrow,  pursues  an 
honest  employment  and  deserves  the  respect  of  the  com- 
munity. But  the  dissipated  student  is  an  useless  idler  ; 
who  well  needs  blush  before  all  for  his  unprofitableness 
and  tremble  at  his  increasing  responsibilities  and  sins. 

If  he  must  and  will  be  dissipated,  better  be  anywhere 
than  here.  Let  him  labor  in  the  fields:  for  the  beasts 
thereof  that  plod  with  him  and  the  tenants  of  the  air  that 
sing  to  him,  he  cannot  corrupt.  Let  him  traverse  the 
billows  of  the  ocean,  with  companions  corrupt  as  he  ;  for 
the  fish  of  the  sea  who  sport  around  him,  cannot  drink  in 
his  iniquity.  Let  him  immure  himself  in  the  shop  or 
counting  room  ;  for  there  the  eye  of  a  master  will  be  con- 
stantly over  him  to  restrain,  and  a  surrounding  world  be 
more  excluded  from  his  contaminations.  But  let  him  not 
dwell  in  a  community  so  open  to  his  enticements  as  this  ; 
let  him  not  blast,  with  his  corruption,  these  sons  of  pro- 
mise,-—the  pride  of  our  country — the  hope  of  the  church 
and  the  world. 

One  word  of  direction  only  to  those  in  this  community 
who  are  youths  of  seriousness  and  sobriety.  On  you,  my 
friends,  devolves  a  most  sacred  duty.  You  know  what 
precious  hopes  are  deposited  in  this  body  ;  and  what  de- 
vastating ravages  are  made  upon  them  by  every  member 
of  dissipated  and  vicious  habits.  Be  it  yours,  then,  not 
merely  to  shim  every  pollution  yourselves,  but  to  do 
more  :  to  oppose  its  destructive  progress  in  all  around 
you.  With  deepened  abhorrence  of  the  evil,  stand  forth 
to  stay  its  ravages.  Gather  like  a  sacred  band  of  sen- 
tinels, around  this  depository  of  the  hopes  of  the  Church 
and  your  country.  Guard  it  from  the  attack  of  every 


48  Destructive  Influence  of  the  Transgressor,  etc. 


invader,  however  specious,  apparently  however  friendly. 
To  the  counsels  and  labors  of  its  instructors  and  guar- 
dians, lend  your  countenance,  your  efforts,  your  prayers 
to  God.  Above  all,  take  to  yourselves  the  whole  armor 
of  God  : — the  girdle  of  truth  ;  the  breastplate  of  right- 
eousness ;  the  shield  of  faith  ;  the  sword  of  the  Spirit  :— 
that  you  may  resist  every  enemy  that  invades  this  nur- 
sery of  the  Church,  with  boldness  and  with  success.  Our 
interests  and  yours  are  but  one.  Let  one  high  aim  inspire 
the  hearts  of  all  :  and  that  aim  be  to  keep  this  sacred 
fountain  pure. 

And  O,  Thou  Spirit  of  Light  and  Joy,  Guardian  of  thy 
Church,  Inspirer  of  every  Grace,  come,  with  thy  sacred 
fire  :  consume,  in  every  breast,  its  destructive  lusts:  that 
they  who  go  hence,  may  be  sons  of  light,  heirs  of  prom- 
ise, angels  of  soothing  and  rescuing  mercy,  in  this  guilty, 
polluted,  bleeding,  weeping  world. 


THE    GOOD    PORTION    THAT    IS  NEVER     TAKEN 

A  WA  Y. 


LUKE  X  :  42. 
MARY  HATH  CHOSEN  THAT  GOOD  PART  WHICH  SHALL  NOT  BE  TAKEN  AWAY 

FROM    HER. 

THIS  commendation  was  passed  by  Jesus  while  visiting 
at  the  house  of  Martha  in  Bethany.  On  this  visit,  it 
seems  that  Mary,  desirous  above  all  things  to  receive  the 
gracious  instructions  of  her  guest,  sat  humbly  at  his  feet 
to  hear  his  word.  But  Martha,  though,  as  appears  from 
other  parts  of  the  history,  she  was  a  friend  and  disciple 
of  Jesus,  was  so  anxious  to  spread  her  table  with  a  pro- 
fusion of  dishes  to  gratify  the  bodily  appetites  of  the 
social  circle,  as  that  she  lost  in  a  great  measure  to  her 
soul  the  spiritual  advantages  which  she  might  have  de- 
rived from  the  word  and  presence  of  her  divine  visitor. 
This  worldly  anxiety,  as  is  its  usual  result,  betrayed  her 
into  impatience:  and  she  came  into  the  presence  of  Jesus 
and  Mary,  interrupting  their  holy  communion  with  this 
querulous  language :  "  Lord,  carest  thou  not  that  my 
sister  hath  left  me  to  serve  alone  ?  bid  her  therefore  that 
she  help  me."  But  as  is  usually  the  case  with  one  who  is 
.  censorious  and  petulant,  she  was  herself  the  person  most 
needing  reproof.  Jesus,  in  order  to  call  off  her  attention 
from  her  sister  and  fix  it  on  herself,  repeats  her  name  : 
Martha  !  Martha  !  and  then  briefly  contrasts  her  worldli- 
ness  with  the  spirituality  of  her  sister.  "  Thou  art  care- 
ful and  troubled  about  many  things" — the  things  you  will 
prepare,  the  manner  of  preparing  them,  your  own  hard 
service,  and  what  you  think  your  sister's  sloth  and  indif- 
ference— things  relating  to  the  wants  of  the  body  ;  "  but 
one  thing  is  needful " — to  beings  who  have  a  soul  there  is 


50  Marys  Choice. 


one  thing  of  which  they  have  absolute  need  ;  which 
forms  a  supreme  concern  ;  for  which  they  may  well  relin- 
quish their  worldly  anxieties ;— the  enjoyment  to  be  de- 
rived from  the  knowledge,  the  favor,  the  service  and 
communion  of  God  :  and  then,  to  remind  her  that  Mary 
on  this  particular  occasion  had  acted  wisely  and  in  char- 
acter, and  as  she  herself  to  be  consistent  with  her  profes- 
sion ought  to  have  done,  he  adds  :  "  Mary  hath  chosen 
that  good  part  which  shall  not  be  taken  away  from  her." 
Her  choice  is  fixed  on  a  better  portion  than  worldly 
things  and  she  has  manifested  it  on  this  occasion.  The 
Saviour  calls  it  a  good  part  which  she  chose — or,  as 
the  Greek  term  may  be  rendered,  "lot"  or  "portion." 
For  the  word  means  a  lot  or  portion  to  be  enjoyed,  and 
not,  as  the  English  might  admit,  a  part  or  character  to 
sustain  in  the  conduct  of  life. 

The  example  of  Mary,  therefore,  as  presented  to  us  in 
this  description  of  the  Saviour,  shows  us  that  there  is  a 
satisfying  portion  offered  to  our  acceptance  which  when  chosen 
will  never  be  taken  away. 

In  more  fully  treating  this  subject,  I  will  attempt  to 
show, 

I.  What  is  that  good  portion  which  was  chosen  of  Mary  ; 

II.  The   fact  that  it  must   be  chosen  by  all   those  who 
would  have  it  as  their  own  ;  and, 

III.  That  when  chosen  by  any,  it  will  never  be  taken  away. 
I.  Your  attention  is  first  invited  to  the   nature   of  that 

good  portion  which  was  chosen  of  Mary. 

Now  if  you  will  but  observe  the  conduct  of  Mary  at 
the  time  when  Jesus  passed  this  commendation  upon  her 
character,  you  will  see  that  the  thing  which  she  chose  for 
herself  above  all  others  was  the  friendship  of  God  which 
was  brought  to  her  acceptance  and  enjoyment  by  the 
presence  of  Jesus  Christ.  Like  a  sinner  needing  salva- 
tion and  dependent  for  it  on  that  Saviour  who  came  into 
this  guilty  world  from  the  Father  with  the  word  of 
Eternal  Life,  she  humbly  placed  herself  at  his  feet  to 
receive  this  free  and  bounteous  gift  at  his  hands.  Dis- 
missing every  other  care  and  every  other  thought  for  the 


Mary  s  Choice.  5 1 


time  ;  and  knowing  that  the  Saviour  who  could  restore  to 
her  the  friendship  of  God  and  lead  her  more  fully  into 
the  enjoyment  of  it,  was  near,  she  listened  with  all  her 
heart  to  his  word  of  counsel,  instruction,  reproof  and 
comfort,  as  involving  in  it  all  her  happiness  for  this  life 
and  eternity.  His  word  was  the  means  of  guiding  her 
more  fully  to  the  enjoyment  of  this  highest  object  of  her 
wishes — an  object  for  which  she  postponed  every  other 
care,  for  which  she  renounced  every  other  pleasure,  and 
for  the  full  enjoyment  of  which  she  was  eager  to  improve 
every  occasion, — and  especially  one  so  favorable  as  was 
vouchsafed  to  her  at  this  time  by  the  presence  and  word 
of  Jesus,  who  came  direct  to  her  from  the  throne  of  God 
with  the  full  offer  of  salvation,  and  whose  society  she 
could  hope  but  seldom  to  receive  in  the  house  of  her 
pilgrimage. 

If  this  conduct  of  Mary  shows  that  the  thing  which  she 
chose  as  the  portion  of  her  soul  was  an  interest  in  the 
friendship  of  the  great  Jehovah,  the  same  thing  is  still 
more  clearly  shown  by  the  characteristics  which  Christ 
attributed  to  the  portion  of  her  choice  as  being  the  one 
thing  which  to  sinful  men  is  altogether  needful  and  which 
is  in  every  respect  good. 

The  friendship  of  God  is  the  one  thing  which  is  alto- 
gether needful  to  sinful  men.  For  by  their  voluntary 
departure  from  God,  they  have  not  merely  deprived 
themselves  of  his  friendship  :  they  have  fallen  under  his 
positive  displeasure  and  wrath.  For  in  going  after  other 
objects  of  enjoyment,  and  thus  setting  up  idols  in  their 
hearts,  they  are  guilty  of  despising  all  the  goodness  of 
God  their  Creator,  disrespecting  his  high  authority, 
trampling  on  his  la\v  of  benevolence  and  holiness,  -and 
thus  they  fall  under  that  penalty  of  his  endless  dis- 
pleasure which  he,  out  of  righteous  regard  to  the  holiness 
and  happiness  of  his  moral  kingdom,  has  affixed  to  the 
violation  of  his  law.  To  mankind  therefore  who  have 
fallen  under  condemnation  by  the  law  of  God  and  are 
subject  to  his  everlasting  displeasure,  the  one  thing  which 
above  all  others  is  needful,  is  the  restoration  and  enjoy- 


52  Marys  Choice. 


ment  of  the  favor  of  God.  For' there  is  no  being  in  the 
universe  that  can  afford  them  the  relief  they  need,  so  long- 
as  they  remain  alienated  from  him  and  subject  to  his 
wrath.  Nor  can  they  find  relief  in  the  temporary  bene- 
factions which  they  receive  from  his  long-suffering  good- 
ness :  which  they  are  only  abusing  and  provoking  him  to 
withdraw  from  them  forever  so  long  as  they  remain  sub- 
ject to  his  wrath.  And  there  is  nothing  which  he  can 
himself  do  for  them  which  will  afford  them  any  relief, 
short  of  their  restoration  back  to  the  enjoyment  of  his 
friendship.  As  long  as  they  remain  destitute  of  this  one 
thing,  they  must  be  subjects  of  his  wrath.  And  if  they 
continue  such,  the  day  must  speedily  come  when  they  must 
be  removed  from  all  his  abused  benefits  ;  and,  stripped  of 
every  source  of  enjoyment  in  the  universe,  must  lie  down 
in  the  everlasting  burnings  of  shame  and  degradation 
and  despair, — hopeless  outcasts  from  the  love  of  God  and 
from  his  happy  kingdom  ;  despairing  sufferers  in  the 
everlasting  torments  which  come  from  his  righteous  judg- 
ment. To  souls  then  which  have  fallen  by  their  sin  under 
his  displeasure,  the  one  portion  which  they  absolutely 
need  ;  without  which  they  must  be  forever  wretched  and 
ruined  ;  without  which  all  the  high  capacities  of  the  soul 
and  its  everlasting  existence  must  prove  but  a  deeper 
curse, — is  the  restoration  and  enjoyment  of  the  friendship 
of  God. 

This  one  portion  too  is  the  only  one  in  the  universe 
which  is  absolutely  and  relatively  good. 

This  is  the  only  portion  man  can  enjoy  which  is  abso- 
lutely good.  For  every  other  species  of  happiness  taken 
in  separation  from  the  love  and  friendship  of  God,  can- 
not afford  an)7  solid  peace  and  satisfaction  to  the  soul.  It 
is  alloyed,  at  the  very  time  it  is  most  enjoyed^  with  the 
reflection  that  it  is  separating  the  heart  still  farther  from 
God  and  filling  it  more  with  the  feelings  of  worldly  idol- 
atry and  sin.  But  in  seeking  and  enjoying  the  friendship 
of  the  infinite  God,  the  soul  feels  conscious  that  it  ascends 
to  the  very  source  of  all  blessing  and  enters  into  the  pos- 
session of  a  love  which  commands  all  the  gifts  which  are 


Marys  Choice.  53 


in  the  universe, — a  love  which  fills  the  soul  with  a  purity 
and  peace  which  are  satisfying  to  its  largest  desires,  which 
will  render  every  other  inferior  enjoyment  doubly  rich, 
which  \vill  extract  from  every  sorrow  of  this  life  and  from 
death  itself  the  stings  of  an  accusing  conscience  and  divine 
wrath.  Here  in  the  presence  of  God  and  beneath  the 
light  of  his  countenance,  with  his  love  shed  abroad  in  the 
heart  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  soul  is  filled  with  a  peace 
and  joy  in  God  which  passeth  all  understanding. 

The  friendship  of  God  is  a  portion  too  which  is  rela- 
tively good.  When  the  soul  seeks  this  portion  for  itself, 
it  invades  the  happiness  of  no  other  being  in  the  universe. 
It  stands  in  a  right  attitude  towards  all.  Not  only  are  its 
own  capacities  of  enjoyment  filled  from  the  fountain  of 
living  waters  to  which  it  repairs,  but  the  benevolence  of 
the  infinite  God  is  gratified  in  taking  charge  of  the  soul 
that  honors  him  by  casting  itself  wholly  on  his  love.  And 
in  repairing  to  his  benevolent  love  for  its  happiness,  the 
soul  too  is  filled  with  benevolent  sympathies  for  that 
kingdom  which  is  deriving  its  happiness  from  the  same 
pure  source;  and  with  deep  solicitude  for  the  sinful, and 
guilty  lost  who  are  wandering  away  from  it  into  hopeless 
exile'  and  misery.  The  soul  that  with  all  the  heart 
cleaves  to  the  love  of  God  for  its  own  portion  of  joy,  is 
thus  filled  with  desire  to  imitate  the  love  of  its  Father  in 
heaven,  to  fulfil  his  sweet  commands,  and  to  aid  in  those 
works  in  his  kingdom  which  redound  to  his  praise  and 
the  welfare  of  his  creatures. 

The  portion  then  which  Mary  chose  for  her  soul  was 
that  needful  and  good  portion  which  was  brought  down 
to  her  acceptance  by  the  presence  of  Jesus  Christ — even 
the  enjoyment  of  the  friendship  of  God. 

II.  This  portion  must  be  chosen  by  all  those  who  would 
have  it  as  theirs. 

Mary,  it  seems  from  the  declaration  of  Christ,  chose 
the  friendship  of  God  for  herself  as  her  portion  of  happi- 
ness. She  considered  the  friendship  of  the  Infinite  God 
as  brought  down  by  Jesus  Christ  to  her  free  acceptance. 
She  knew  that  she  could  not  receive  and  enjoy  it  while 


54  Mary  s  Choice. 


she  remained  indifferent  to  it  and  set  her  heart  supremely 
on  other  objects.  Refusing  all  other  objects,  therefore,  in- 
consistent with  it,  she  chose  this  with  all  her  heart  as  the 
object  of  her  happiness,  and  in  this  way— so  far  as  her 
own  conduct  was  concerned— it  became  hers.  She  actu- 
ally enjoyed  that  friendship  which  with  all  her  heart  she 
chose.  And  so  must  it  ever  be  with  all  who  would  enjoy 
the  friendship  of  God— they  must  seek  it  with  all  the 
heart.  And  there  are  various  considerations,  beside  this 
explicit  declaration  concerning  Mary,  which  show  that  in 
order  to  enjoy  the  friendship  of  God,  men  must  choose  it 
with  their  whole  heart  as  their  supreme  portion.  I  ob- 
serve, therefore,  as  evidence  of  such  a  truth  : 

i.  That  in  the  Gospel   God   proffers   his  friendship  to 
men  for  their  choice  and  acceptance. 

This  constitutes  the  very  difference  between  the  law  of 
God  and  the  Gospel.  In  his  holy  law  he  denounces  a 
curse  against  all  sin,  and  brings  all  men  as  sinners  under 
the  sentence  of  condemnation.  And  if  he  had  never  pub- 
lished to  the  world  any  other  message,  he  would  place  all 
in  a  state  of  absolute  despair  and  under  the  inevitable 
endurance  of  his  wrath.  But  the  gospel  is  the  annuncia- 
tion to  men  of  the  glad  tidings  that  with  their  offended 
Lawgiver  there  is  pardoning  mercy  and  recovering  grace 
adequate  to  all  their  need.  Here  he  offers  freely  to  re- 
move from  their  souls  the  sentence  of  his  wrath  and 
restore  to  them  his  everlasting  favor.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  nor  mistake  on  this  point  which  is  so  essential  to 
the  salvation  of  guilty  men.  The  very  object  for  which 
he  sent  his  Son  into  the  world  and  consented  to  the  pains 
of  his  crucifixion  was  to  render  it  consistent  with  his 
rectitude  to  offer  this  reconciliation  to  the  acceptance  of 
our  guilty  race.  On  that  basis  the  offer  is  now  published 
to  the  world.  And  accompanying  the  offer  are  published 
most  earnest  entreaties,  most  solemn  warnings,  most 
touching  expostulations  and  imperious  commands,  that 
they  immediately  avail  themselves  of  the  offered  grace  ; 
that  they  receive  it  not  in  vain. 


Mary's  Choice.  55 


If  therefore  the  reconciliation  and  friendship  of  God  is 
thus  freely  offered  to  men,  it  is  most  obviously  presented 
to  them  as  an  object  which  they  must  either  accept  or 
refuse.  For  the  very  fact  of  offering  this  reconciliation 
shows  that  it  is  not  conferred  independently  of  all  choice  ; 
that  so  long  as  men  refuse  it,  so  long  as  they  remain  in- 
different to  it,  so  long  as  they  prefer  their  sins  and  idols 
to  the  friendship  of  God,  that  friendship  will  not  be 
theirs.  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  offer  shows  that  God 
is  perfectly  willing  to  bestow  his  friendship  upon  any  one 
who  does  in  reality  seek  it  with  the  heart  as  all  his  salva- 
tion and  all  his  desire.  Let  any  one,  I  say,  make  the  full 
and  hearty  choice  of  the  friendship  of  God  as  his  portion, 
and  he  will  be  permitted  to  enter  into  that  source  of  pure 
and  endless  enjoyment.  For  how  can  God,  consistently 
with  such  an  offer,  turn  away  from  his  throne  with  refusal 
the  heart  that  comes  to  him  desiring  his  reconciliation 
and  favor  above  all  idols,  and  sins,  and  all  inferior  joys  ? — 
a  heart  that  gives  up  everything  for  his  favor  and  that 
prefers  it  as  its  portion  above  all  things  else  which  God 
can  give  ? 

The  necessity  of  choosing  this  favor,  in  order  to  have 
it  as  ours,  will  appear  still  further,  if  we  consider, 

2.  That  the  nature  of  God's  friendship  is  such  that  it  can- 
not be  taken  by  us  without  choice.  The  fact  that  it  is  offer- 
ed would  show  that  it  is  not  bestowed  absolutely  as  an  ob- 
ject independent  of  our  choice  ;  \\snature  I  will  now  attempt 
to  show  is  such  that  it  cannot  be.  And  on  this  point,  I 
apprehend  people  often  indulge  a  great  mistake  by  which 
they  attempt  to  excuse  themselves  for  the  great  indiffer- 
ence of  heart  which  they  feel  in  respect  to  so  supreme 
and  necessary  a  good  which  involves  in  it  their  whole 
salvation.  Because  they  see  that  God  is  an  infinite  and 
independent  Being,  who  has  created  them  and  who  be- 
stows on  them  many  benefits  without  their  care,  they  say 
that  he  can  bestow  on  them  the  highest  benefit,  even  the 
friendship  of  his  heart  and  their  eternal  salvation,  just  as 
independently  of  their  choice.  But  in  this  view  they  lose 
sight  entirely  of  the  fact  that  he  is  a  Moral  Being,  seek- 


56  Marys  Choice. 


ing,  as  the  great  object  of  his  reign  over  the  universe,  the 
happiness  of  intelligent  and  voluntary  beings  like  him- 
self; and  that  there  is  just  and  precisely  the  same  neces- 
sity, if  he  would  do  good  to  such  a  kingdom,  that  he 
dispense  his  favor  and  displeasure  on  his  subjects  with 
relation  to  their  voluntary  conduct,  as  there  is  that  a  good 
father  should  do  so  to  his  children,  or  a  wise  and  faithful 
ruler  should  do  so  to  his  subjects.  If  therefore  it  be  con- 
sidered that  men  have  offended  him  and  fallen  under  his 
displeasure  in  this  very  way  by  disregarding  the  design 
of  his  benevolent  government  and  seeking  their  happiness 
in  objects  and  ways  which  he  has  forbidden,,  it  is  evi- 
dently impossible  that  while  they  adhere  to  their  wrong 
choice  they  should  ever  receive  his  friendship.  And  it  is 
obvious,  that  whatever  else  the  atonement  of  Jesus  Christ 
may  have  effected,  it  has  not  removed  this  invincible 
necessity  of  subjecting  all  our  interests  to  the  govern- 
ment of  God  by  a  hearty  choice  of  his  friendship,  if  we 
would  take  that  friendship  as  ours.  The  atonement  of 
Christ  and  the  offer  of  reconciliation  made  on  the  basis  of 
it,  shows  indeed  this  glorious  truth  to  the  guilty, — that 
past  separation  from  God  and  past  condemnation  by  his 
law  for  our  sins,  do  not  stand  in  our  way  as  impassable 
barriers  to  such  an  immediate  and  hearty  return  to  the 
love  of  our  Father  in  heaven.  But  they  have  not  re- 
moved, and  never  will  remove  the  necessity  which  arises 
out  of  the  very  nature  of  God  and  ourselves  as  intelligent 
and  voluntary  beings,  that  if  we  would  avail  ourselves  of 
the  opportunity  of  reconciliation  now  granted  us,  we 
must  renounce  those  chosen  portions  which  have  alien- 
ated us  from  God  and  choose  his  glorious  friendship  as 
our  supreme  hope  and  joy.  Otherwise  we  shall  still 
remain  alienated  from  him  in  our  hearts,  insubmissive  to 
his  benevolent  and  holy  government,  with  our  w'ills  per- 
versely bent  on  our  individual,  selfish  and  sinful  gratifi- 
cation ;  and  how  can  we  expect,  while  retaining  such 
feelings  of  opposition  to  his  government,  to  receive  his 
reconciling  and  saving  mercy  ?  Do  you  say  that  with  all 
these  feelings  of  irisubmission,  you  can  still  choose  his  re- 


Mary  s  CJwicc.  $7 


conciliation  and  friendship?  But  if  you  suppose  this,  you 
only  deceive  yourself.  You  may  indeed  be  willing-  that  he 
should  remove  from  you  his  displeasure  and  become  a  friend 
to  you,  while  you  are  still  pursuing  your  course  of  sin  and 
opposition  to  his  holy  government.  But  in  all  this,  the 
real  choice  of  your  heart  is  to  take  the  happiness  which 
you  can  find  in  other  objects  than  God  ;  and  in  your  own 
ways  of  disobedience.  You  in  reality  refuse  the  joy  of 
his  reconciliation  and  friendship.  Your  wish  to  receive 
his  favor  is  in  reality  no  other  than  the  choice  that  he 
would  renounce  the  benevolence  and  holiness  of  his  moral 
government,  and  leave  you  to  go  forward  unmolested  in 
your  sins.  To  choose  his  friendship  as  your  portion,  you 
must  take  it  as  it  is:  valuing  it  supremely  for  the  very 
reason  that  he  is  so  good  and  holy  ;  and  renouncing,  for 
it,  everything  inconsistent  with  its  enjoyment.  If  you 
will  thus  accept  of  his  friendship,  if  you  will  seek  it  with 
all  your  heart  as  the  thing  most  desirable  to  your  soul,  if 
you  will  make  that  hearty  choice  of  it  that,  for  entering 
into  its  enjoyment,  you  will  cheerfully  take  on  yourself  all 
the  humiliation,  and  renunciation  of  self  and  sin,  and  de- 
votion to  his  service  which  in  his  holiness  and  grace  he 
requires,  it  is  yours.  If  he  is  willing  to  be  reconciled  to 
any  of  mankind  and  receive  them  to  his  Fatherly  care 
and  love,  it  is  to  such  as  thus  choose  to  cast  themselves 
and  all  their  interests  on  his  care  and  redemption,  and  to 
seek  their  everlasting  all  in  his  pure  and  holy  friendship. 

But  still  farther  to  show  that  his  friendship  becomes 
ours  by  our  choosing  it  with  all  the  heart  as  our  supreme 
portion,  I  observe  again, 

3.  That  such  a  choice  is  necessary  for  entering  heartily 
into  the  privileges  and  duties  of  his  children.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  they  who  with  all  their  heart  enjoy  the 
privileges  and  perform  the  duties  of  his  children  are  in- 
terested in  his  forgiving  and  adopting  love.  And  in  order 
to  see  that  a  hearty  entrance  and  continuance  on  these 
privileges  and  duties  depends  on  choosing  the  love  of 
God  as  our  portion,  you  need  only  to  look  at  one  very 
simple  and  plain  principle — that  the  heart  can  cleave 

9 


58  Marys  Choice. 


only  to  one  supreme  portion  :  and  that  portion  must  be, 
either  the  selfish  happiness  derived  from  the  world,  or  the 
happiness  found  in  the  favor  and  benevolent  service  ol 
God.  From  this  principle  it  is  clear  that  either  the  world 
must  be  renounced  for  Christ  or  Christ  must  be  renounced 
for  the  world  ;  there  cannot  be  any  compromise  in  the 
real  choice  of  the  heart  between  them.  And  in  choosing 
to  derive  your  happiness  from  Christ  himself  rather  than 
from  things  around  you  in  his  creation,  you  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  wrong,  unless  it  be  wrong  to  take  happiness  above 
all  things  in  the  love  of  Christ  and  the  benevolent  service 
to  which  that  love  leads  us.  And  with  this  hearty  choice 
of  the  friendship  of  Christ,  that  renounces  all  things  for 
the  sake  of  his  love  and  cleaves  to  his  love  as  all,  every 
Christian  privilege  is  entered  on  and  every  Christian  duty 
is  performed  with,  a  devoted  and  cheerful  heart.  The 
Scriptures  are  read  and  the  throne  of  grace  is  resorted  to 
in  prayer,  with  constancy  and  delight  as  the  very  means 
and  privileges  which  are  designed  to  bring  Christians 
more  fully  into  the  enjoyment  of  that  grace  of  God  on 
which  they  rest  their  hearts.  And  duties  are  performed 
and  sin  is  resisted  with  a  full  and  cheerful  purpose  of 
heart,  for  the  sake  of  continuing  and  advancing  in  the 
enjoyment  of  that  benevolent  and  holy  love  of  God  which 
is  chosen  as  all  the  happiness  of  the  soul  to  eternity. 
There  is  no  other  way  in  which  a  sinner  can  enter  heart- 
ily into  the  privileges  and  duties  of  a  child  of  God,  or  go 
forward  with  the  strength  of  grace  in  the  Christian  con- 
flict with  temptation  and  sin,  than  by  renouncing  as  a  lost 
and  humbled  sinner  that  portion  in  the  world  that  has 
withdrawn  his  heart  and  all  his  powers  from  God,  and 
choosing  God  in  Christ  as  the  Friend  in  whose  love  and 
under  whose  benevolent  government  he  would  find  his 
portion  of  joy  for  ever. 

But  I  proceed  to  show  you, 

III.  That  this  is  a  portion  which  when  chosen  by  any 
will  not  be  taken  away  from  them. 

This  surely  is  the  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ.  For  the 
very  same  portion  is  offered  to  the  guilty  now  which  was 


Mary  s  Choice.  59 


chosen  of  Mary,  and  if  it  was  true  in  her  case,  that  in 
choosing  this  portion  for  herself  it  was  secured  to  her  for- 
ever, there  is  the  same  reason  in  the  nature  of  the  portion 
itself  and  the  free  offer  made  of  it  to  others,  that  it  should 
be  secured  to  them  also,  on  their  choice  of  it,  for  eternity. 
And  there  are  various  considerations  which  go  to  confirm 
this  animating  truth,  besides  this  declaration  and  other 
declarations  of  the  Scriptures  equally  explicit :  A  few  of 
these  considerations  I  will  now  present  to  your  view. 
And, 

i.  The  expense  at  which  God  offers  to  sinners  his 
friendship  shows  that  he  designs  it  when  accepted  by 
them  for  an  inalienable  gift.  If  you  wish  for  convincing 
proof  that  his  grace  is  thus  full  and  ample,  look  to  the 
sacrifice  which  he  has  freely  made  for  us  on  Calvary.  He 
has  consented  that  his  Beloved  Son  should  leave  the 
throne  of  heaven,  and  that,  taking  upon  him  the  load  of 
our  sins,  he  should  go  to  the  cross  and  bear  the  indigna- 
tion for  us  which  we  deserved,  in  order  that  the  endless 
penalty  of  his  law  might  be  freely  removed  from  our 
souls,  and  we  be  restored  to  the  joys  of  his  friendship  as 
dear  children.  Could  the  heart  that  voluntarily  endured 
all  this  trial  in  order  to  remove  from  us  the  penalty  of 
death  and  restore  us  again  to  his  friendship,  design  any 
less  a  gift  than  our  restoration  to  his  endless  love  ?  Could 
he  leave  us,  after  reconciliation  and  after  the  restoration 
of  his  love,  to  fall  back  again  to  endless  condemnation  ? 
Could  he,  by  his  own  act  of  the  withdrawal  of  his  fatherly 
love,  render  the  cross  which  had  reconciled  us  of  no 
effect?  The  thought  of  such  a  withdrawal  of  his  favor,  is 
totally  inconsistent  with  that  strength  of  desire  which  he 
has  manifested  for  our  recovery  in  the  mission  of  his  Son 
and  the  appointment  of  his  crucifixion.  No  !  The  heart 
that  conceived  such  a  gift,  was  full  of  desire  for  our  re- 
covery from  endless  death  and  our  enjoyment  of  his 
blessed  favor  and  reign  to  all  eternity.  He  surveyed  the 
full  length  and  breadth  of  our  wants  ;  and,  in  his  bene- 
volence, determined  fully  to  meet  them.  In  the  cross,  we 
have  full  testimony  that  his  benevolence  and  grace  arc 


60  Marys  Choice. 


thus  large  and  free.  "  He  that  spared  not  his  own  Son 
but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall  he  not  with  him 
also  freely  give  us  all  things?  "  What  can  ever  overcome 
such  intense  love  ?  What  can  ever  alienate  it  from  those 
who  repair  to  it  with  all  their  heart  and  make  it  all  their 
desire  and  hope  for  eternity  ? 

He  will  never  take  away  his  friendship  from  those  who 
choose  it  as  their  supreme  and  everlasting  portion  ;  be- 
cause, 

2.  They  will  need  it  for  their  happiness  through  all 
eternity.  There  will  never  be  a  time  during  their  im- 
mortal existence  when  he  can  withdraw  from  them  his 
friendship  and  care  without  depriving  them  of  the  happi- 
ness for  which  their  very  natures  were  designed,  and 
leaving  them  desolate  and  wretched  and  hopeless  forever. 
And  why  should  he  voluntarily  withdraw  his  friendship 
from  such  dependent  and  needy  creatures  who  have 
sprung  from  his  own  creating  hand,  when  with  all  their 
heart  they  throw  themselves  on  his  care?  There  is  no 
need  now  of  executing  upon  them  the  penalty  of  his  law 
in  order  to  maintain  his  authority.  He  can  freely  dis- 
pense with  their  punishment  on  account  of  the  atonement 
he  has  accepted  at  the  hands  of  his  Son.  And  the  very 
fact  that  he  once  enters  into  reconciliation  with  them  and 
receives  them  to  the  enjoyment  of  his  friendship,  is  a  full 
acknowledgment  on  his  part  that  he  is  not  bound  by 
such  a  necessity.  There  is  nothing  therefore  to  hinder 
his  consulting  the  everlasting  wants  of  their  souls.  And 
will  he  not  as  freely  bestow  his  friendship  for  eternity  as 
for  a  limited  time?  The  very  act  of  coming  forward  to 
seek  their  reconciliation,  shows  that  he  desires  their  wel- 
fare. And  when  they  come  with  all  their  hearts  to 
receive  the  gift  and  seek  to  share  in  the  largeness  of  his 
mercy  to  the  guilty,  will  he  ever  think  of  turning  them 
away  empty,  and  driving  them  from  his  presence  and 
love  ?  Would  not  this  be  a  needless  neglect  of  their 
wants?  Is  this  the  goodness  of  the  infinite  and  all-suffi- 
cient Creator?  Will  he  treat  thus  the  souls  that  he  has 
made?  Will  he,  when  on  his  invitation  they  come  to  him 


Mary's  Choice.  61 


for  their  soul's  salvation,  knowing-  that  he  is  the  only 
being  on  whom  they  can  depend  for  it,  and  that  he  can 
grant  them  their  desire  without  injuring  any  in  his  king- 
dom, — will  he  receive  them  merely  for  a  day  or  a  few 
years,  and  then  cast  them  off  from  his  love  to  destitution 
and  hopeless  misery  forever?  The  heart  that  calls  us 
back  to  his  love  and  kingdom  has  surely  felt  for  our  deep 
necessities  as  immortal  beings  and  dependent  creatures, 
and  is  more  bounteous  than  to  forsake  us  in  all  our  need, 
when  self-abased  for  our  sin  we  put  all  our  confidence  in 
him  for  an  endless  salvation.  "  I  will  not,"  says  this 
High  and  Lofty  One,  to  sinners  who  are  broken  off  from 
all  self-confidence  and  self-sufficiency  and  who  look  to 
Him  alone  for  their  eternal  hope  and  joy, — "  I  will  not 
contend  forever,  neither  will  I  be  always  wroth,  for  the 
spirit  should  fail  before  me,  and  the  souls  which  I  have 
made."  He  feels  an  interest  in  lost  sinners  as  deep  as 
their  endless  wants,  and  he  would  not  invite  them  back 
to  the  care  of  his  friendship  and  love  without  a  perfect 
willingness,  and  even  an  ardent  desire,  that  on  their  return 
they  should  freely  share  in  his  holy  friendship  to  all 
eternity. 

I  will  only  add, 

3.  That  to  such  as  choose  to  enjoy  his  friendship  and 
live  under  the  care  of  his  holy  government  to  eternity, 
he  has  granted  already  all  the  means  necessary  to  their 
everlasting  continuance  in  his  love.  He  has  placed  his 
word  of  instruction,  counsel  and  authority  in  their  hands, 
accompanied  with  the  free  offer  of  his  grace,  to  which 
they  can  resort  through  all  the  pilgrimage  of  this  life, 
and  rest  their  souls  on  his  promises.  He  has  elevated 
his  Son  to  the  throne  as  their  living  intercessor,  through 
whom  they  may  freely  repair  to  his  throne  of  mercy  in 
all  their  wants.  He  has  sent  his  Holy  Spirit  as  a  friend 
to  their  spiritual  welfare,  on  whom  they  can  rely  at  all 
times  to  help  and  guide  them  in  the  way  to  heaven.  And 
with  all  these  aids  to  help  them  forward  to  the  chosen 
object  of  th'eir  heart — the  everlasting  enjoyment  of  his 
love, — what  is  there  in  the  universe  that  can  separate  them 


62  Mary  s  Choice. 


from  this  love?  God  is  for  them,  and  who  or  what  can  be 
against  them  and  prevail  ?  Shall  sin  again  have  dominion 
over  them  ?  But  they  are  not  under  bare  law  which  con- 
demns them,  but  under  the  care  of  a  grace  which  is  suffi- 
cient for  their  victory,  and  to  it  they  may  constantly  repair 
for  strength.  Will  Satan  or  the  ungodly  prevail  over 
them  ?  They  have  a  Friend  mightier  than  all  their  foes, 
in  the  shelter  of  whose  love  they  are  strong  and  bold  to 
resist.  Will  the  joys  or  sorrows  that  come  upon  them  in 
their  earthly  lot,  withdraw  their  hearts  from  God  ?  But 
the  Lord  in  whom  they  trust,  is  the  dispenser  of  every 
earthly  providence  ;  and  no  temptation  will  he  suffer  to 
come  upon  them  which  they  are  not  able  to  bear,  and  in 
all  he  opens  to  them  a  way  of  escape  in  their  free  access 
to  his  all-sufficient  grace.  Will  death  separate  them 
from  the  God  in  whom  they  hope?  But  in  that  hour  he 
is  as  near  as  ever  to  take  care  of  the  body  and  spirit 
which  they  resign  to  his  disposal.  Will  the  day  of  judg- 
ment bring  upon  them  any  sentence  of  separation  from 
God  ?  But  the  God  who  offered  them  the  pardon  of  all 
their  sins  and  to  whom  they  fled  for  reconciliation,  will 
confirm  that  pardon  before  his  whole  kingdom.  Nor  can 
impenitent  men  or  fallen  angels  in  their  envy  and  malice, 
bring  any  accusation  against  them  which  will  prevail 
over  his  pardoning  mercy.  They,  therefore,  who  really 
renounce  their  sins  before  God,  and  choose  an  interest  in 
his  love  for  their  immortal  souls,  have  the  portion  of  their 
choice  secured  to  them  through  life,  at  death  and  the 
judgment,  and  to  all  eternity  in  heaven.  Nor  shall  life  or 
death,  things  present  or  things  to  come,  or  any  creature, 
all  which  are  under  his  control,  be  able  to  separate  them 
from  his  love. 

Such,  then,  is  the  evidence  I  have  presented  to  show 
that  there  is  a  satisfying  portion  which  may  be  chosen  by 
us,  which  will  never  be  taken  away. 

I  remark,  in  closing, 

i.  That  God  is  fully  willing  that  sinners  should  secure 
their  own  everlasting  happiness. 

He  is  not  willing,  indeed,  that  they  should  be  eternally 


Mary's  Choice.  63 


happy  in  departing-  from  him  in  their  affections.  His 
benevolent  regard  to  his  moral  creation  requires  that,  if 
they  continue  in  that  course,  he  should  abandon  them  to 
destruction.  But  although  men  have  wilfully  and  per- 
versely entered  on  that  course,  he  has  met  them  in  his 
grace  with  the  offer  of  a  free  remission  of  the  penalty 
and  the  everlasting  friendship  of  his  heart,  as  their  inherit- 
ance of  joy,  if  they  will  return  to  him  in  true  repentance. 
And  now  nothing  remains  but  that  you  take  with  your 
whole  heart  the  portion  he  offers. 

This  responsibility  he  casts  upon  you.  But  in  casting 
this  responsibility  on  you,  he  shows  a  perfect  willingness 
that  you  should  secure  that  happiness.  For  this  respon- 
sibility is  a  necessary  result  of  his  creating  you  rational 
and  voluntary  beings.  And  unless  you  were  such  beings, 
he  could  not  possibly  bring  you  into  the  blessedness  of  a 
communion  in  his  love  and  friendship.  And  with  this 
responsibility  lying  upon  you,  and  when  you  had  forfeited 
the  care  of  his  government  by  forsaking  him,  he  has  not 
only  brought  that  friendship  down  to  your  choice  at  all 
the  expense  of  making  an  atonement  for  your  sins,  but  he 
urges  on  you  the  choice  of  it  with  all  the  solicitude  of  a 
true  Friend  to  your  everlasting  happiness :  saying,  "  turn 
ye,  for  why  will  ye  die  ?  "  And  his  Spirit  often  strives  for 
the  very  purpose  of  inducing  you  to  renounce  all  things 
for  a  portion  in  his  love.  And  now  when  nothing  re- 
mains but  your  own  choice,  is  he  not  fully  willing?  If 
you  will  now  with  all  your  heart  renounce  your  supreme 
attachment  to  the  world  and  choose  the  friendship  of  his 
heart  as  your  supreme  joy,  if  you  will  thus  turn  to  God 
in  your  hearts  in  true  repentance — if  you  will  forsake  all 
things  for  Christ  and  his  love,  the  Spirit  of  grace  who 
strives  with  you  to  bring  you  to  that  very  choice,  will 
lead  you  forward  in  it  to  all  eternity.  The  God  of  grace 
to  whose  redeeming  love  you  cleave,  will  conduct  you 
up  to  one  height  of  grace  after  another  through  the 
temptations  of  this  life,  and  convey  you  safely  through 
the  vale  of  death  and  beyond  his  judgment  seat,  and  place 
your  purified  and  happy  spirit  among  the  ransomed  in 
heaven. 


64  Mary  s  Choice. 


And  will  you  complain  now,  that  he  is  unwilling-  that 
you  should  find  eternal  happiness  under  his  government  ? 
Will  you  stand  cleaving  to  this  world  as  all  your  joy- 
renouncing  the  service  and  friendship  of  God  ;  and  at  the 
very  time  you  are  refusing  his  endless  love,  will  you  com- 
plain of  him  as  an  enemy  to  your  welfare  ?  Will  you 
throw  on  him  the  blame  of  that  very  separation  from  him, 
to  which  with  all  the  heart  you  yourselves  are  clinging? 
Will  you  find  fault  with  him  for  giving  you  souls  capable 
of  endless  happiness  and  misery,  because  you  are  tearing 
them  away  from  the  blessedness  of  his  government? 
Treat  not  thus  that  God  who  is  love,  and  \vho  meets  you 
in  the  midst  of  your  wilful  alienation  and  unjust  com- 
plaints, with  the  offer  of  endless  reconciliation  through 
Christ.  He  is  not  the  God  of  hatred  and  injustice  which 
you  pretend.  But  you  are  the  unjust  and  ungrateful 
rebels  against  him  which  he  declares.  And  if  you  will 
not  confess  it  and  renounce  your  sin,  while  he  offers  you 
his  grace,  he  will  roll  on  you  before  his  whole  kingdom 
the  everlasting  shame  and  contempt  of  despising  his  love, 
and  will  leave  you  to  your  own  choice  of  separation 
forever  to  eternity. 

Once  more ; 

2.  The  everlasting  interests  of  your  souls  urge  you  to 
choose  immediately  for  your  portion  the  friendship  of 
God. 

The  Lord  who  made  your  souls,  who  knows  that  all 
their  happiness  depends  on  their  union  to  his  love,  has 
brought  down  his  endless  grace  with  all  its  benefits  and 
offered  it  to  your  acceptance  through  Christ  Jesus.  And 
the  great  and  practical  inquiry  arises :  will  you  accept  this 
happiness  as  the  portion  of  your  souls?  Will  you  betake 
yourselves  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  and  renouncing 
every  other  dependence,  choose  him  as  your  Redeemer 
and  Lord  for  eternity,  surrendering  all  that  you  have  and 
are  to  him,  expecting  henceforth  all  your  happiness  from 
his  friendship  and  love?  You  must  come  to  this  renun- 
ciation of  all  things  for  Christ,  or  remain  unreconciled 
and  at  distance  from  him  cleaving  to  your  sins.  There  is 


Mary's  Choice.  65 


no  dispensing  with  your  own  choice  in  this  matter. 
There  is  no  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  that  will  ever 
take  you  out  of  these  circumstances  of  responsibility,  or 
that  will  or  can  ever  lead  you  to  salvation  in  any  other 
way  than  through  your  own  hearty  choice  of  communion 
and  friendship  with  God.  The  everlasting  interests  of 
your  souls  then  are  suspended  on  your  choosing  the  good 
portion  which  Christ  now  offers. 

And  why  should  you  not  choose  it  with  all  your  heart? 
God  is  willing.  He  is  desirous.  And  is  not  the  happi- 
ness to  be  found  in  his  favor  and  communion,  the  most 
exalted  to  which  y our  souls  can  aspire  ?  Is  it  not  worthy 
to  be  chosen  by  you  with  all  the  heart?  Is  it  so?  May 
you  bring  that  soul  of  yours  under  his  fatherly  love  and 
care  to  all  eternity  ;  and  will  you  despise  such  a  gift? 
Will  you  tear  that  soul  away  from  those  everlasting  bles- 
sings, which  are  to  come  from  his  benevolent  reign  ?  And 
why  ?  What  causes  are  there  that  you  will  permit  to 
operate  so  far  as  to  keep  you  away  from  the  love  of 
Christ?  Are  they  the  possessions  of  this  world  —  its 
wealth,  pleasures,  honors?  But  he  only  forbids  you  to 
cleave  to  these  as  your  supreme  portion,  and  to  pursue 
them  with  all  your  heart.  He  calls  for  your  heart  himself, 
and  will  still  leave  many  of  these  possessions  with  you  as 
his  steward.  Or  is  it  regard  to  the  favor  of  man  or  to  the 
fear  of  man's  displeasure?  But  what  can  man  do  for  your 
soul,  if  for  his  sake  you  should  refuse  the  portion  it  needs 
in  the  infinite  God  ?  And  if  you  should  cast  your  soul  on 
the  care  of  Almighty  grace  and  have  God  for  your 
helper,  what  need  you  fear  what  man  can  do  unto  you  ? 
Or  shall  pride  hinder  you?  Shall  a  dying  sinner  who  is 
on  the  brink  of  endless  ruin,  feel  so  self-sufficient  that  he 
will  not  seek  after  God  ? — a  poor,  guilty  and  condemned 
criminal,  who  is  about  to  be  consigned  to  perpetual  dark- 
ness and  pain,  be  ashamed  penitently  to  accept  deliver- 
ance before  all  from  his  offended  God  ? 

And  now  will  you  not  make  the  wise  and  happy  choice 
to  which  the  Gospel  calls  you?  Will  you  refuse  a  por- 
tion in  the  love  of  God,  and  cleave  to  the  base  and 

10 


66  Mary's  Choice. 


momentary  pleasures  of  the  world  and  sin?  Will  you  go 
forward  to  eternity  an  alien  from  God,  and  wilfully  de- 
prive that  soul  of  yours  of  all  the  joys  of  God's  eternal 
kingdom,  and  place  it  irretrievably  and  beyond  redemp- 
tion in  all  the  degradation  and  anguish  of  eternal  punish- 
ment ?  Look  up  to  the  glory  of  that  God  who  made  this 
mighty  universe  and  rolls  the  spheres  through  the  bound- 
less firmament.  See  that  heart  of  love  ready  to  receive 
you  as  a  child,  and  conduct  you  forward  to  the  holiness 
and  joy  that  are  to  flow  on  his  kingdom  from  his  benevo- 
lent government  through  the  eternal  ages  to  come.  He 
knows  what  a  boundless  good  he  is  preparing  for  the 
immortal  minds  he  has  made  ;  and  he  invites  you  to  come 
up  and  take  your  portion  in  his  love  and  kingdom. 
Christ  who  died  for  you,  is  willing.  The  Spirit  who 
strives  with  you,  is  willing.  The  angels  who  welcome 
back  the  penitent,  are  willing.  The  Church  who  plead 
with  you  and  pray  for  you,  are  willing.  You  need  not 
perish.  Cleave  then  no  longer  to  the  world  and  sin  and 
perdition.  Moved  by  the  grace  of  God,  say  from  the 
heart,  "  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father."  Let  his 
righteousness  receive  its  honors  in  the  cross.  Let  his 
grace  receive  its  honors  in  your  salvation. 


THE  POWER    OF    TRUST. 


PSALM  CXII:  7. 

HE  SHALL  NOT  BE  AFRAID   OF  EVIL  TIDINGS  :    HIS    HEART   IS  FIXED,  TRUSTING  IN 

THE  LORD. 

THIS,  the  Psalmist  testifies,  is  the  happy  lot  of  the 
righteous  man.  With  a.  heart  throbbing  with  all  the  sen- 
sibilities of  life,  exposed  to  all  the  sources  of  evil  that  are 
overwhelming  others,  he  has  found  for  it  a  point  of  rest, 
that  is  exalted  above  every  evil :  he  has  anchored  it  firm 
and  fast  in  the  haven  of  immortal  security,  forever  be- 
yond the  raging  tempest :  and  with  a  heart  thus  fixed  and 
established,  he  can  triumph  over  the  power  of  evil :  in 
view  of  the  unseen  and  untried  future,  he  is  not  afraid  of 
any  tidings  of  overwhelming  evil.  This  happy  lot  is 
secured  to  him  by  trusting  in  N  the  Lord;  by  looking  to 
the  Lord  alone  for  his  welfare,  surrendering  all  his  in- 
terests for  time  and  eternity  implicitly  to  his  disposal  ; 
submitting  everything  to  the  decision  of  his  will  ;  own- 
ing him  with  childlike  dependence  as  a  wise,  forgiving 
arid  faithful  Father  alike  in  days  of  prosperity  and  adver- 
sity ;  and  expecting  from  him  steadily  a  complete  deliver- 
ance out  of  all  evil  and  an  exaltation  to  endless  joy  in  his 
kingdom. 

That  we  may  secure  this  happy  lot  of  the  righteous 
man,  let  us  consider  his  act  of  trust,  and  its  power  to 
strengthen  and  establish  his  heart  for  a  triumph  over  evil. 

The  act  of  trust  in  God  I  will  however  first  describe, 
and  then  show  its  efficacy  thus  to  establish  the  heart. 

I.  To  trust  is  to  commit  some  interest  of  ours  into  the 
hands  of  another,  in  the  belief  that  he  is  competent  and 
willing  to  manage  it  for  us,  and  with  the  expectation  that 
he  will  make  it  good. 


68  The  Power  of  Trust. 


II.  It   must   be  some  interest  of  ours— that    in   which, 
directly  or  indirectly,  immediately  or  remotely,  our  wel- 
fare or  feelings  are  concerned — otherwise    we  have    no- 
thing to  trust. 

III.  We  must  believe  the  trustee  capable  and  willing— 
and  expect  him  to  be  faithful, — to  secure  the  interests  wre 
commit  to  him  ;   otherwise  we  squander  them  rather  than 
trust  them  for  security. 

An  estate,  for  instance,  falls  to  you  in  your  minority, 
which  yoirare  incompetent  to  manage  with  safety  your- 
self; and  which,  as  you  are  deprived  of  the  natural  guar- 
dian of  your  youth  by  the  decease  of  your  parent,  must, 
if  kept  from  running  to  waste,  be  entrusted  to  the  care  of 
some  other  person.  Now  in  your  act  of  trust  you  choose 
some  individual,  willing  to  take  that  care  upon  him,  as 
your  guardian  and  trustee,  to  whose  management  you 
commit  it,  in  the  belief  that  he  is  worthy  of  the  trust,  and 
with  the  expectation  that  he  will  keep  it  safe  unto  the 
day  for  your  complete  possession.  Thus  you  are  not  to 
trust  without  committing  some  interest  of  yours  to  the 
keeping  of  another,  nor  without  believing  the  trustee 
capable.  For  to  place  your  interests  in  incapable  hands, 
would  be  to  throw  them  away  to  the  sport  of  mere 
chance.  Nor  are  you  to  trust  without  expecting  the 
guardian  to  be  faithful.  For  to  put  your  interests  into 
the  hands  of  the  faithless,  would  be  to  squander  them 
away  on  the  support  of  injustice  or  crimes. 

The  act  is  essentially  the  same  when  the  guardian  to 
whom  we  commit  our  interests  is  God.  We  commit 
them  to  his  care,  in  the  belief  of  his  competency  and 
willingness,  and  with  the  expectation  that  he  will  keep 
them  safe  for  our  possession.  Only  the  trust  is  distin- 
guished from  all  others,  by  the  extent  of  the  interests  enu- 
merated in  our  deed  of  trust,  by  the  qualities  of  God  our 
Guardian  which  fit  him  to  take  them  in  charge,  and  by 
the  solemn  forms  in  which  he  conveys  his  promises  and 
engagements  that  he  will  be  faithful  to  secure  them  for  us 
to  eternity. 


The  Power  of  Trust.  69 


Before  God  we  are  all  minors,  incapable  of  securing  to 
ourselves  the  estate  of  immortal  glory  and  blessedness 
which  is  the  original  birthright  of  his  rational  creatures. 
Nay  worse :  we  are  perverse  and  rebellious  children,  who 
have  taken  the  chief  management  into  our  own  hands, 
and  refused  it  to  him,  our  natural  Guardian  :  and  thus  by 
our  unnatural  separation  and  our  unrighteous  rebellion, 
have  forfeited  our  whole  estate  in  his  love  and  kingdom, 
and  are  in  imminent  hazard  of  final  and  utter  disinherit- 
ance. In  this  situation  we  all  are  when  the  good  tidings 
of  promise  reach  us — a  promise  essentially  the  same  in 
all  past  ages  and  the  foundation  of  trust  to  all  his  right- 
eous servants,  but  which  is  more  amply  set  forth  and 
more  widely  published  in  these  last  days,  in  the  Gospel  of 
his  Son — the  promise  that  he  will,  notwithstanding  the 
past,  act  as  the  Parental  Guardian  of  all  who  will  return 
to  him  and  entrust  the  management  of  their  immortal 
interests  to  his  hands  ;  and  that  he  will  see  them  put  into 
the  full  and  happy  possession  of  an  immortal  inheritance 
in  his  kingdom  at  the  last  day. 

Many,  indeed,  who  hear  the  tidings  refuse  the  offer. 
They  persist  in  venturing  all  upon  their  own  management 
still ;  and,  in  continued  alienation  and  rebellion,  they 
either — like  the  prodigal — squander  every  remaining  gift 
and  bounty  of  God  on  their  own  lusts,  careless  and  un- 
regardful  of  the  future  ;  or — like  the  Pharisee — while 
equally  estranged  from  God  in  heart  and  abusing  to  equal 
perversion  all  his  gifts,  vainly  attempt  to  build  on  their 
hollow  ceremonies  that  over-stock  of  merit  with  which  to 
purchase  from  God,  after  they  have  squandered  their 
earthly  portion  on  sin,  that  heavenly  one  for  which  they 
have  rendered  themselves  unfit,  and  which  they  have 
scorned  to  receive  as  his  gift.  But — unlike  the  thoughtless 
prodigal  worldling,  or  the  deluded  victim  of  self-righteous 
pride, — the  righteous  man  accepts  the  proposal  of  God 
made  in  Christ  Jesus  :  returns  to  him  submissively,  chooses 
him  as  the  Guardian  of  his  well-being,  entrusts  all  to  his 
keeping,  with  unshaken  belief  in  his  faithfulness.  He  has 
learnedj  from  the  little  he  has  seen  of  himself  and  his 


7O  The  Poiver  of  Trust. 


fellow  men,  from  the  teachings  of  »his  own  nature  and  of 
providence,  the  utter  vanity  of  cleaving  to  an  earthly 
portion  in  separation  from  God :  how  the  heart  is  all  disturb- 
ance and  agitation,  from  the  conscious  sense  of  ill  desert, 
ingratitude  and  unworthiness  ;  from  the  insecurity  of  the 
portion  to  which  it  clings  ;  from  the  temptations  it  offers 
to  increasing  sin  ;  from  the  brood  of  evil  passions  it  en- 
genders :  and  he  is  sick  of  its  emptiness.  He  has  learned 
too,  that  he  cannot  possibly  manage  by  himself  to  secure 
true  and  lasting  riches  in  the  kingdom  of  God — the  hea- 
venly portion.  The  evils  of  unworthiness,  dissatisfaction, 
temptation,  malicious  passion,  which  are  the  only  abiding 
fruit  of  his  course  of  separation,  are  crowding  upon  him 
with  ever  greater  force,  and  must  make  his  everlasting 
portion  forfeit,  and  forever  detain  him  under  their  power, 
—an  exile  from  the  happiness  that  reigns  in  the  holy  and 
immortal  kingdom  of  the  Creator — unless  he  return  to 
him  and  seek  the  help  of  his  mightier  power. 

It  is  with  these  heartfelt  convictions,  troubled  and  dis- 
satisfied with  his  erring  courses,  conscious  that  he  is 
astray  from  God  and  must  lose  all  if  he  continues  so,  and 
yet  hardly  daring  to  think  that  his  Creator  can  forgive  the 
past  or  do  anything  for  him  in  the  future,  that  his  eye  meets 
the  written  promise  of  God,  which  assures  him  that  there 
is  yet  a  way  to  secure  the  birthright  of  a  child  in  his 
eternal  love  and  kingdom  ;  that  if  he  will  make  Him  his 
Guardian,  and  come,  committing  in  good  faith  and  in  well 
doing  all  his  welfare  to  his  disposal,  all  his  sins  will  be 
readily  forgiven  him,  and  he  shall  have  kept  and  made 
sure  to  him  an  eternal  portion  in  heaven.  He  reads  the 
word  of  God.  He  is  convinced  that  the  record  has  been 
made  by  his  eternal  Creator ;  that  it  has  been  published 
by  him  in  good  faith  ;  that  he  is  disposed  and  able  to 
make  it  good.  He  believes  the  record.  And  now  his 
trust  begins.  In  the  resolve  of  a  trusting  soul,  he  says 
within  himself,  '  I  will  go  to  my  offended  God  with  this 
sorrowing  and  bursting  heart.  I  will  ask  his  forgiveness 
for  the  past,  and  implore  him  to  be  the  Guardian  of  my 
immortal  interests.'  He  makes  out,  in  his  mind,  his  deed 


The  Power  of  Trust.  71 


of  trust.  He  includes  in  it  his  whole  being  with  all  its 
capacities  and  powers.  He  surrenders  all,  he  commits 
all,  in  good  faith,  to  the  care  of  the  faithful  Creator.  He 
goes  with  it  into  his  presence  ;  declares  it  to  be  his  free 
will  and  deed  ;  subscribes  it  before  him  with  his  own 
hand  ;  and  lodges  it  with  him  for  a  testimony. 

And  now  his  joy  begins.  His  heart  is  fixed  by  this 
deed  of  trust  to  the  source  of  safety  and  rest.  And  he 
keeps  it  fixed,  by  continued  trust — by  holding  on  to  his 
Guardian,  to  his  word  and  throne  of  grace  :  submitting 
all  to  him  and  receiving  all  from  him,  in  good  faith.  So 
it  is  by  trusting — by  the  act  of  trust  continued  truly  and  in 
good  faith,  that  he  keeps  his  heart  fixed  amid  all  the 
changes  of  this  life ;  through  duties  and  trials,  privileges 
and  privations,  joys  and  sorrows.  By  trusting,  he  hides 
himself  within  the  secret  pavilion  of  the  Almighty  for 
defense  and  repose,  unto  the  day  when  he  shall  enter  on  the 
immortal  inheritance  purchased  for  him  in  heaven  and 
receive  his  birthright  as  a  child  of  God, — a  life  estate  of 
holy  joy  in  his  eternal  kingdom. 

II.  But  we  will  consider  now  more  particularly  the 
effect  of  his  trust,  to  fix  and  establish  his  heart,  to  exalt 
it  to  an  ascendancy  over  evil. 

The  righteous,  with  his  neighbor,  is  embarked  on  an 
eventful  life,  with  all  his  interests  in  the  future  at  stake. 
Exposed  to  many  sources  of  moral  and  natural  evil,  which 
seem  ready  to  devour,  neither  can  fix  the  heart  in  im- 
movable repose  by  resorting  to  apathy  and  indifference. 
The  sensibilities  of  the  heart  cannot  be  extinguished  ; 
nor  be  stifled  so  far  as  to  need  nothing  for  joy,  as  to  bear 
every  thing  without  anguish.  There  is  to  every  heart 
some  loss  which,  if  incurred,  would-be  insupportable; 
some  evil  which,  if  inflicted,  would  be  beyond  endurance. 
No  heart  therefore  is  steadfastly  fixed  in  repose,  that  does 
not  rest  for  its  happiness  on  something  that  is  beyond 
temptation,  guilt,  disappointment  and  sorrow. 

Now  the  righteous,  by  trusting  in  God,  fixes  his  heart 
to  such  an  object,  and  establishes  its  happiness  on  an 
immovable  foundation  exalted  above  all  evil ;  because  in 


72  The  Power  of  Trust. 


his  trust  he  anticipates  a  full  and  perfect  inheritance  of 
joy  in  heaven :  he  assures  his  heart  of  securing  it  beyond 
failure  :  and  he  arms  his  heart  with  patience  to  endure 
every  temporal  loss  or  suffering  which  may  come  upon 
him  before  he  is  put  into  its  full  possession. 

i.  He  anticipates  an  inheritance  in  heaven  that  is  fully 
and  forever  satisfying. 

He  has  set  his  heart  on  God,  his  reconciled  and  gracious 
Father  in  Heaven.  His  treasure  is  in  God  himself,  the 
ever  holy,  the  ever  blessed  ;  the  full  and  overflowing  foun- 
tain of  good.  It  is  laid  up  in  the  inexhaustible  stores  of 
his  wisdom  and  goodness  and  power:  from  which  he 
supplies  the  holy  in  his  heavenly  presence  with  fullness  of 
joy :  by  which  he  places  them  in  an  estate  of  perfect 
glory  and  blessedness  ;  exalted,  like  his  own,  high  above 
the  reach  of  every  evil ;  firm  and  enduring,  as  his,  to 
eternity.  This  inheritance  in  heaven  will  be  enough  to 
feed  his  capacious  mind  and  heart  with  fullness  of  joy  for- 
ever more ;  and  in  the  anticipation  he  now  rests  with 
calm  and  settled  delight. 

He  doubts  not  that  his  Father  in  heaven  has  abundant 
riches  to  settle  forever  on  all  the  children  of  his  adoption, 
the  heirs  of  promise.  He  trusts  in  his  word,  with  un- 
shaken confidence  that  there  is  such  an  inheritance  in 
heaven  worthy  of  all  his  toils,  and  there  his  heart  fixes 
its  desires  and  affections.  Nor  is  he  afraid  that  the  evil 
tidings  will  ever  reach  him  that  he  has  fixed  his  heart  on 
vanity  and  delusion.  There  are  indeed  in  the  world 
those  who  publish  tidings  of  evil — who  announce  that 
there  is  no  immortality  for  man — that  there  is  no  Creator 
enthroned  in  the  wealth  of  eternity  to  own  him  as  a  child 
and  endow  him  as  an  heir  of  immortality — and  who,  in 
their  atheistic  blindness,  call  upon  him  to  seek  his  happi- 
ness solely  in  the  objects  of  this  fleeting  world.  But 
what  authority  have  they  for  the  evil  tidings  they  pub- 
lish ?  Have  they  traversed  the  vast  provinces  of  this 
creation  and  the  regions  of  immensity  beyond,  and  made 
the  discovery  by  actual  searching,  that  there  is  no 
God  nor  any  world  of  his  immortal  children?  The  ser- 


The  Power  of  Trust.  73 


vant  of  God,  while  he  sees  in  the  atheistic  around  him, 
those  who  are  confined  to  the  same  world  with  himself, 
and  who  have  no  more  knowledge  by  actual  vision  than 
he,  will  still  go  on  with  unshaken  heart,  to  trust  in  the  ex- 
istence of  the  invisible  God  and  his  invisible  kingdom, 
and  await  the  issue  of  his  trust  after  death.  In  the  mean 
time  he  has  seen  within  him  and  around  him  too  many  of 
the  works  of  God  to  doubt  his  existence ;  he  has  experi- 
enced too  much  of  his  care  already  to  doubt  his  grace. 
He  has  proved  by  experience  that  there  are  depths  in 
his  own  nature  which  none  else  can  ever  fill.  At  distance 
from  him  he  has  encountered  the  stormy  ocean  of  selfish- 
ness, temptation,  guilt  and  passion  ;  and  has  passed  by  the 
wrecks  of  those  who  have  sunk  in  utter  disappointment 
and  wretchedness  and  despair.  He  has  himself  tasted 
deeply  of  all  those  ingredients  of  agitation  and  anguish 
that  cleave  to  a  worldly  portion  taken  in  alienation  from 
God.  And  now,  since  he. trusted  in  God  and  submitted 
his  destiny  to  his  disposal,  he  has  tasted  some  of  the  first 
fruits  of  his  grace :  the  foretastes  and  earnests  of  the 
promised  inheritance.  He  has  felt  the  tempests  of  temp- 
tation and  sin  subside  within  him  at  the  command  of 
Christ.  He  has  felt  the  love  of  God  taking  possession  of 
his  heart  more  and  more  as  he  has  trusted,  and  strength- 
ening him  in  the  ways  of  holiness.  He  feels  that  the  God 
in  whom  he  trusts,  in  communion  with  whom  even  now 
his  heart  at  times  takes  in  a  measure  of  joy  that  is  un- 
speakable and  full  of  glory,  is  all  sufficient  to  his  endless 
joy.  With  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  in  his  heart  that  he 
is  a  son  of  God,  with  the  earnest  of  the  future  inherit- 
ance now  in  possession,  he  trusts  on,  undisturbed  amid 
the  evil  reports  that  are  circulated  in  the  world  around 
him  respecting  his  heavenly  Father.  He  trusts  on,  rejoic- 
ing in  the  delusion,  if  it  be  one,  that  so  ministers  to  his 
present  holiness  and  joy  and  to  his  hopes  of  futurity. 
He  trusts  on  till  death,  willing  to  abide  the  issue  in 
eternity. 

2.  Again,  by  trusting  in  God,  he  assures  his   heart  of 
securing  that  heavenly  inheritance  beyond  failure.     The 

ii 


74  The  Power  of  Trust. 


promise  in  which  he  trusts  assures  him,  not  only  that 
there  is  an  immortal  inheritance  in  heaven  for  the  obedi- 
ent sons  of  God,  but  that  the  guardianship  offered  to  the 
guilty  and  needy  on  earth  through  Christ  will,  to  those 
who  in  good  faith  rely  on  it,  secure  the  possession.  The 
securities  upon  which  he  proceeds  in  his  trust,  are  firmly 
settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  mind.  He  acts  on 
the  word  of  God  which  he  is  satisfied  is  genuine.  He 
has  risen  above  the  fear  that  the  record  is  counterfeit. 
He  sees  upon  it  the  known  signature  of  God — the  marks 
of  his  omniscience,  omnipotence,  holiness  and  love.  He 
is  not  afraid  to  rest  in  it  as  genuine,  to  come  with  it 
before  God  and  plead  it  in  his  presence,  and  to  make  it 
the  basis  of  all  his  welfare  for  eternity.  His  heart  is  at 
rest  on  that  point.  With  a  genuine  promise  from  God 
in  his  hands,  he  is  satisfied  too  that  the  Promiser  is  good 
beyond  all  deceit  or  failure.  He  wishes  no  better  security 
than  that  of  his  name.  The  promise  is  backed  with  the 
weight  of  his  character,  and  it  can  be  by  no  higher  secu- 
rity. And  to  this  promise  his  Father  has  bound  himself 
with  an  oath  ;  and  because  he  could  swear  by  no  greater, 
he  sware  by  himself;  that  by  these  immutable  pledges  in 
which  he  could  not  lie,  strong  consolation  might  be  given 
to  the  heirs  of  promise  who  have  fled  to  him  for  refuge. 
With  these  securities  settled  to  his  satisfaction, — that  the 
promise  is  genuine  and  the  Promiser  good  beyond  failure, 
—his  trust  places  his  heavenly  inheritance  secure  in  the 
keeping  of  God.  He  knows  in  whom  he  believes,  and  is 
persuaded  that  he  is  able  to  keep  that  which  he  commits 
unto  him  against  that  day.  Nor  while  committing  his 
cause  to  God,  resting  on  his  word  in  good  faith,  does  he 
fear  that  anything  will  be  able  to  cut  him  off  from  his 
final  inheritance. 

He  escapes  in  this  way  the  dangers  that  lurk  within 
his  own  being.  Does  he  hear  the  tidings  published,  that 
the  heart  of  man  is  deceitful  above  all  things  ?  And  does 
he  see  the  melancholy  wrecks  of  those  around  him  who 
are  led  by  their  own  lusts  into  confirmed  iniquity  and 
guilt,  and  are  become  the  suffering,  helpless,  despairing 


The  Power  of  Trust.  75 


captives  of  evil  ?  He  knows  indeed  that  he  carries  within 
his  own  breast  such  tendencies  to  evil  as  render  him  unfit 
to  manage  his  interests  alone — enough  of  pride  or  covet- 
ousness  or  sensuality  to  make  utter  shipwreck  of  his  wel- 
fare were  he  to  trust  in  his  own  heart.  But  he  has  fled 
from  this  danger  which  once  threatened  his  utter  over- 
throw. His  own  weakness  and  exposures  as  a  sinner  he 
feels,  and  for  this  very  reason,  unwilling  to  trust  the  cause 
of  his  welfare  to  his  own  hands,  he  has  betaken  himself  to 
the  immediate  care  and  supervision  of  an  Almighty  God 
and  Saviour.  In  him  he  trusts  for  deliverance  from  all 
the  evil  that  is  still  lurking  in  his  heart.  He  goes  as  a 
trusting  child  into  his  immediate  presence  and  pleads  in 
prayer  his  gracious  promise  for  deliverance  from  the 
power  of  his  sinful  inclinations.  Nor  does  he  fear,  while 
resting  on  his  word  and  feeling  the  sanctifying  power  of 
his  love  already  in  his  heart,  but  that  his  Father  will  pre- 
sent him  holy  and  unblamable  in  his  sight  at  the  last  day, 
an  inheriter  of  eternal  joy.  He  thus  escapes  from  his 
own  weakness  and  sin  by  hiding  himself  in  the  arms  and 
upon  the  bosom  of  his  Almighty  Guardian,  and  taking  to 
his  heart  the  sanctifying  power  of  his  truth  and  love. 

Nor  does  he  fear  that  fellow-beings  will  cut  him  off  from 
the  promised  inheritance.  For  the  Lord  in  whom  he 
trusts  is  high  and  infinite,  over  all  the  foes  that  can  rise 
up  against  him  in  the  creation.  If  evil  spirits  in  this 
universe  are  allowed  to  come  near  him,  or  if  his  fellow- 
men  ever  gather  around  him  to  assail  his  welfare,  he  puts 
his  immortal  interests  beyond  their  reach  by  committing 
them  as  a  child  to  the  care  of  the  Almighty.  He  goes 
up  to  him  who  controls  all.  He  calls  upon  him  as  his 
Guardian,  for  defense  from  the  assaults  of  temptation. 
He  pleads  before  him  with  confidence  his  own  promise. 
He  knows  his  word  is  sure.  On  it  he  is  willing  to  rest. 
And  while  binding  his  heart  to  the  Almighty  in  unshaken 
trust,  while  cleaving  in  steadfast  faith  to  the  love  of  God 
in  Christ  Jesus,  no  assaults  of  enemies  in  the  creation  can 
break  the  bond.  None  can  divide  between  him  and  God. 
His  heart  and  treasure  is  above  all,  bound  fast  to  the 
throne  of  the  Infinite  and  the  Almighty. 


76  The  Power  of  Trust. 


Nor  does  he  fear  that  God  himself  will  cut  him  off  from 
his  heavenly  inheritance.  He  expects  to  behold  him  on 
the  day  of  judgment,  and  to  hear  his  lips  pronounce  on 
multitudes  who  appear  before  him,  the  sentence  of  final 
and  endless  exclusion  from  his  kingdom.  But  in  view  of 
that  coming  day  he  is  not  afraid  of  such  tidings  of  evil  to 
himself.  He  now  betakes  himself  to  God  and  commits 
his  cause  to  his  management  in  season.  He  knows  that 
he  has  merited  as  a  perverse  and  guilty  creature  a  disin- 
heritance from  his  love  and  kingdom.  But  he  has  been 
brought  nigh  to  God  in  reconciliation,  and  has  accepted  his 
gracious  proposal  to  justify  him  and  admit  him  to  his 
birth-right  in  heaven.  He  pleads  that  promise  now  as 
his  defense.  He  is  willing  to  abide  the  issue,  on  that  fear- 
ful day.  He  trusts  in  his  word  that  it  is  he  who  justifieth 
the  ungodly,  who  believe  that  his  Son  has  died  and  risen 
again  to  make  intercession.  Clinging  to  a  Guardian 
whose  sole  prerogative  it  is  to  pronounce  final  sentence  on 
mankind,  and  who  engages  to  justify  his  righteous  ser- 
vants, he  fears  no  condemnation.  He  sees  his  immortal 
interests  safe  in  the  keeping  of  his  Father  in  Heaven. 
He  trusts  on  till  death  ;  assured  of  receiving  beyond  fail- 
ure the  immortal  inheritance,  for  which  he  pants,  of  a 
child  in  his  kingdom  of  glory. 

3.  Once  more  ;  by  trusting  in  God  he  arms  his  heart 
with  patience  to  endure  every  temporal  loss  or  suffering 
which  may  come  upon  him  before  receiving  the  inherit- 
ance. For  having  his  heart  fixed  on  a  pure  and  unfading 
inheritance  in  the  immortal  kingdom  of  God  and  a  title 
secured  to  that  inheritance  which  is  beyond  failure,  there 
remains  no  evil  for  him  to  encounter  but  such  as  affects 
his  temporal  interests :  his  happiness  in  this  life  merely, 
while  on  his  way  to  eternity.  The  worst  tidings  that  he 
can  expect  to  hear  are  such  as  respect  temporal  disap- 
pointment and  loss,  or  temporal  sufferings.  He  knows 
not  indeed,  precisely  how  much  temporal  loss  or  suffering 
may  come  upon  him  in  consequence  of  his  own  impru- 
dence or  the  encroachments  of  fellow-beings,  or  the  more 
direct  dispensations  of  Providence.  Yet  by  casting  all 


The  Power  of  Trust.  77 


his  care  upon  God,  he  is  preparing  his  heart  to  endure 
the  utmost  that  may  come  upon  him.  He  surrenders  all 
his  mortal  interests  into  the  hands  of  God  ;  assured  that 
his  providence  is  over  the  wide  creation ;  that  every 
temporal  good,  by  whatever  secondary  almoner  adminis- 
tered, is  his  gift ;  that  every  temporal  evil  by  whatever 
hands  inflicted,  is  his  rod  of  chastisement:  and  he  trusts 
in  the  word  of  God  his  Guardian,  that  he  will  order  the 
bounty  and  discipline  of  his  hand  according  to  his  wants, 
and  act  toward  him,  in  all  his  earthly  course,  as  a  wise 
and  kind  Father  ;  consulting  his  highest  welfare — intent 
to  render  him  a  partaker  of  his  holiness  and  blessedness. 
Having  from  the  heart  committed  all  to  the  orderings  of 
his  wise  providence,  he  is  prepared  to  receive  every 
earthly  gift  with  that  spirit  of  thankfulness,  and  to  endure 
every  earthly  trial  with  that  spirit  of  patience,  which  the 
wisdom  and  love  of  God  inspire  in  every  truly  trusting 
heart. 

Why  then,  in  a  world  which  his  Father  superintends, 
and  in  which  his  Father  is  training  him  up  for  the  holy 
joys  of  his  eternal  kingdom,  should  his  heart  be  overcome 
with  the  fear  of  evil  tidings  ? 

He  is  in  a  world  indeed  that  is  full  of  evils.  Many 
hearts  around  him  are  sinking  with  forebodings  of  what  is 
to  come  or  fainting  under  the  evils  which  are  already 
upon  them.  They  cannot  bear  their  earthly  losses  and 
disappointments  and  cares,  and,  if  they  do  not  suffer  them- 
selves to  pine  away  the  lingering  death  of  inconsolable 
grief,  vainly  attempt  to  stifle  their  own  sensibilities  in 
intemperance  or  rush  upon  utter  annihilation.  But  all 
these  are  embarked  on  the  stormy  ocean  of  mere  self- 
adventure,  wilful  wanderers  from  God,  with  none  but  a 
worldly  portion  to  feed  their  panting  hearts.  He  has 
escaped  ;  and  is  fast  moored  to  the  Rock  of  Eternal 
Strength,  the  Citadel  of  Eternal  Joy. 

And  now,  what  evil  tidings  does  he  fear  shall  come  to 
affect  him  at  this  anchorage  ground  ?  Shall  he  hear  of 
the  death  of  beloved  friends  ?  or  shall  disappointments 
and  losses  as  to  worldly  good  assail  him  ?  or  shall  pains 


78  The  Power  of  Trust. 


and  sufferings  announce  their  presence  in  his  decaying; 
body  ?  But  in  all  these,  even  at  the  worst  and  when 
inflicted  by  malicious  foes,  he  sees  the  hand  of  God  in 
whom  he  trusts.  Though  accumulated  upon  him  at  once 
as  they  were  upon  the  righteous  Job  -though  messenger 
after  messenger  arrive  with  evil  tidings — he  still  clings  to 
the  God  of  his  hopes.  He  casts  himself  with  all  his  bur- 
dens afresh  in  prayer  on  the  love  and  sympathy  of  God, 
and  arms  his  heart  with  patience  to  endure.  It  is  the 
Lord  ;  let  him  do  what  seemeth  him  good.  The  Lord 
who  gave  hath  taken  away  ;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the 
Lord.  If  some  spirit  of  impatience  and  evil  suggest  to 
his  heart  that  he  curse  God  and  die,  he  repels  the  blas- 
phemous suggestion  that  would  tear  his  soul  away  from 
the  anchorage  of  its  hopes.  He  still  clings  in  trust  to  a 
bright  reversion  in  the  love  of  God.  His  tribulation  even 
now  worketh  the  patience  of  filial  love,  the  experience  of 
divine  compassion  and  faithfulness ;  and  hope  grows 
stronger  in  a  heart  into  which  are  flowing  these  fresh  and 
increasing  measures  of  God's  love.  And  whether  his 
afflictions  pass  over  him  wholly  in  this  life  or  not,  they 
are  but  the  faint  clouds  and  gentle  ripples  of  the  dark 
and  furious  tempest  that  is  raging  out  on  the  broad  ocean 
he  has  escaped  ;  which  lie  awhile  over  the  harbor  of 
security  he  has  reached  ;  and  which  skirt  a  land  before 
him  of  eternal  brightness  and  joy. 

What  tidings  of  earthly  evil  then  shall  he  fear  ?  Is  it 
the  tidings  of  temporal  death  ?  But  that  is  his  last 
enemy.  All  the  malice  of  his  foes  in  the  whole  creation, 
can  reach  no  farther.  And  the  God  in  whom  he  trusts, 
disarms  even  this  enemy  of  his  sting.  By  whatever 
means  the  evil  shall  be  inflicted,  he  sees  in  it  the  mes- 
senger of  the  Lord.  He  fears  no  evil  from  the  Lord  his 
Shepherd,  who  summons  him  into  his  presence.  *  Though 
he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him,'  is  the  language  he 
returns  to  the  message.  And  now  as  he  leaves  all  things 
earthly  forever,  with  the  heavenly  inheritance  full  before 
him,  the  foretastes  of  its  joys  in  his  heart,  the  covenant  of 
promise  in  his  hands,  he  goes  down,  at  the  bidding  of  the 


The  Power  of  Trust.  79 


messenger,  to  cross  the  narrow  passage  which  yet  sepa- 
rates him  from  the  citadel  of  his  King,  the  land  of  his 
inheritance.  At  that  hour  he  clings  to  the  promise  of  the 
eternal  covenant  that  has  fed  his  heavenly  hopes  and 
affections  during  the  vicissitudes  of  former  days.  That 
promise  of  his  Creator  and  Saviour  is  now  the  joy  and 
rejoicing  of  his  heart.  That  promise  binds  his  heart  to 
God  and  attunes  his  lips  to  the  praises  of  victory.  And 
venturing  his  all  upon  it  as  he  goes  forth  to  the  shores  of 
eternity,  he  escapes  the  terror  of  his  last  enemy.  He 
passes  away  in  the  full  expectation  to  meet  face  to  face 
the  Creator  of  his  spirit,  to  hear  him  own  the  promise  as 
genuine  and  good,  to  receive  from  him,  the  Redeemer  of 
the  lost,  the  inheritance  of  an  adopted  child  in  his  holy 
and  immortal  kingdom,  and  to  be  exalted  forever  beyond 
all  approach  of  evil. 

I  have  thus  set  before  you  the  effect  of  trust  in  God  to 
establish  the  heart  of  the  righteous  in  the  repose  of  an 
invincible  strength  ;  to  establish  it  firm  against  the  over- 
coming fear  of  future  evil  : — that  it  does  this  by  setting 
the  heart  on  God  and  thus  administering  to  it  joyful 
anticipations  of  a  satisfying  inheritance  in  his  love  and 
kingdom  :  assuring  it  of  entering  into  the  possession 
beyond  failure  :  and  arming  it  with  patience  to  endure 
every  evil  that  will  be  permitted  to  assail  him  while  on 
the  way  to  that  full  inheritance.  "  The  righteous  shall 
not  be  afraid  of  evil  tidings  :  his  heart  is  fixed,  trusting  in 
the  Lord.  His  heart  is  established,  he  shall  not  be  afraid." 

And  now,  to  conclude,  I  would,  as  a  practical  improve- 
ment of  the  subject,  propound  two  questions  for  serious 
consideration  and  decision.  Is  not  the  lot  of  the  right- 
eous in  this  kingdom  of  our  Creator  more  excellent  than 
that  of  his  unbelieving  neighbor  ?  And  is  it  not  wise  to 
imitate  him  in  the  trust  by  which  he  secures  that  lot  ? 

i.  Is  not  the  lot  of  the  righteous  in  this  kingdom  of  our 
Creator  more  excellent  than  that  of  his  unbelieving 
neighbor?  Whose  condition  bids  fairest  for  happiness  in 
the  unseen  and  untried  eternity  to  which  both  are  hasten- 
ing ?  Who  is  most  likely  to  fare  well  in  the  endless  ages 


8o  The  Power  of  Trust. 


to  come  ?  I  speak  as  unto  wise  men, — able  to  discern 
between  good  and  evil ;  judge  ye  what  I  say. 

You  see  the  unbeliever  living  without  God,  trusting  to 
the  devices  of  his  own  heart  for  his  happiness,  seeking  his 
portion  in  the  pleasures  he  can  find  in  mere  worldly 
things.  He  is  out  on  the  uncertainties  of  this  life,  ven- 
turing his  whole  welfare  on  this  trust.  Yet  even  now 
temptations  are  thickening  upon  him,  the  evil  passions  of 
pride  and  sensuality  and  selfishness  and  malice  are  occu- 
pying his  heart  with  intenser  sway  ;  and  disappointments, 
losses,  sufferings  and  fears  are  crowding  upon  him  a  more 
inconsolable  burden.  He  goes  forward  to  eternity  the 
captive  of  guilt  and  sorrow  ;  and  we  see  him  no  more. 

You  see  the  righteous, — once  embarking  his  welfare  on 
the  safne  course, — alarmed  and  dissatisfied  ;  turning  to  the 
promise  of  this  book  and  recognizing  it  as  the  promise  of 
the  Creator  ;  renouncing  before  him  his  former  trust  and 
submitting  himself  and  his  whole  welfare,  as  this  book 
directs,  to  the  disposal  of  his  wisdom  and  goodness  and 
power.  Now  does  he  wash  his  hands  in  innocency,  and 
compass,  as  a  filial  servant,  the  altar  of  God  his  joy  and 
refuge.  He  enters  into  holy  communion  with  him,  filling 
his  heart  with  richer  assurances  of  immortal  joy  in  his 
kingdom,  and  arming  it  with  patience  to  endure  and  over- 
come every  sorrow  that  meets  him  on  his  way.  He 
passes  from  us  in  this  state  of  triumph  :  and  we  see  him 
no  more. 

I  say,  you  see  the  righteous  on  this  triumphant  course. 
For  in  the  portrait  I  have  drawn,  I  have  but  described 
the  case  of  well  known  individuals  who  have  existed  in 
the  world  and  passed  before  us  into  eternity.  Not  that 
every  righteous  man  is  equally  exemplary  and  constant  in 
his  filial  trust,  or  attains  equal  degrees  of  hope  or  equal 
degrees  of  exaltation  over  natural  and  moral  evil.  Nor 
that  there  are  not  those  who  profess  their  filial  trust  in 
God  when  in  works  they  deny  him,  who  utterly  fall  in 
the  day  of  temptation  and  trial.  But  the  existence  of  the 
true  believer,  and  the  effects  of  his  filial  trust  in  this  life, 
are  facts  too  clear  to  admit  denial. 


The  Power  of  Trust.  81 

You  see  then  both  on  their  course  in  this  life,  and  ven- 
turing their  well  being  on  their  different  trusts.  They 
have  now  entered  on  an  untried  eternity,  and  what,  judge 
ye,  is  the  issue  ?  Say  not,  you  have  not  seen  eternity— 
that  it  is  hid  in  the  darkness  of  futurity — and  you  cannot 
judge.  Look  to  what  you  do  see :  this  word  that  is  with 
us ;  and  the  believer  in  it,  here  on  his  way,  and  the 
unbeliever.  Judge  from  what  you  do  see,  as  to  what  you 
do  not  see.  Which,  think  you,  is  likeliest  to  fall  the 
eternal  prey  of  natural  and  moral  evil  ?  Which  is  like- 
liest to  rise  to  an  eternal  exaltation  over  both,  in  this 
kingdom  of  our  Creator?  Whose  prospects  are  the 
fairest  for  inheriting  a  blessed  immortality  ?  Are  both 
alike  to  fail  ?  Are  both  alike  to  succeed  ?  To  bring  the 
question  to  a  test:  whose  condition*  would  you  prefer? 
Were  your  Creator  at  this  moment  to  render  himself 
visible,  and,  setting  aside  in  your  case  the  general  rules 
of  his  government,  were  he  to  assure  you,  that  a  mere 
word  from  your  lips  should  decide  it — that,  as  you  said  it 
should  be,  whether  to  take  your  place  in  eternity  with 
Paul  the  apostle,  or  with  Nero  his  persecutor,  with  the 
believing  Baxter  or  with  the  infidel  Voltaire  ;  what  would 
you  say?  Ah,  is  there  a  heart  which  ever  came  near  the 
light  of  this  word  or  the  example  of  its  trusting  believers 
that,  when  brought  to  the  test,  would  not  say,  *  Let  me  die 
the  death  of  the  righteous ;  let  my  last  end  be  like  his  ; 
let  my  lot  in  eternity  be  cast  with  his.' 

2.  I  ask  again,  Is  it  not  wise  to  imitate  the  righteous  in 
the  trust  by  which  he  secures  his  lot  ?  I  address  the 
question  more  particularly  to  those  who  have  not  yet 
returned  to  the  Lord  in  repentance  and  put  their  trust  in 
his  promises  of  grace.  Is  it  not  wise  for  you  to  imitate 
the  righteous  in  his  faith  and  trust  ? 

The  word  of  promise,  with  its  conditions,  is  before  you  ; 
the  word  on  which  he  ventures  his  eternal  well  being, 
and  by  trusting  in  which  he  rises  so  far  ascendant  over 
the  moral  and  natural  evil  which  is  pressing  upon  the 
world,  as  to  appear  before  you  the  joyful  child  of  God 
and  to  convince  you  that  it  shall  fare  well  with  him  in 
eternity.  Is  is  not  wise  then  to  do  as  he  does — to  re- 

12 


82  The  Power  of  Trust. 


nounce  dependence  on  that  which  leaves  you  under  the 
power  of  evil,  and  venturing  all  on  this  word  of  promise 
to  choose,  as  it  proposes,  the  Lord  for  your  Shepherd  ? 

You  are  to  act  of  choice  in  your  trust,  and  not  by  force. 
Your  eternal  well  being  is  at  stake,  and  you  are  to  trust 
it  somewhere.  You  must  venture  it  all  upon  something. 
Do  you  think  it  wise  to  rest  it  where  you  now  do,  in 
your  own  hands,  in  alienation  from  God,  in  subjection  to 
the  power  of  evil,  and  trust  on  and  wait  the  issue  ?  Is  it 
not  better  to  rest  it  on  the  promise  of  this  word  and  to 
come,  as  this  word  proposes,  a  lost  creature  to  God,  sur- 
rendering yourself  to  his  care  through  all  the  vicissitudes 
of  this  life  and  seeking  of  him  through  Christ  Jesus  for- 
giveness, holiness  and  endless  redemption  ? 

Do  you  object  that  this  is  not  a  matter  of  folly  or 
wisdom,  reproach  or  praise,  but  of  necessity  ;  that  belief 
is  involuntary,  depending  upon  evidence  ?  But  you  can 
trust  where  there  are  very  slight  grounds  for  belief,  and 
you  can  refuse  to  trust  wrhere  the  grounds  for  belief  are 
the  strongest.  It  becomes  you  therefore  to  search  impar- 
tially for  the  truth,  and  that  right  early.  But  that  you 
are  not  even  now  kept  from  trusting  in  this  word  of 
promise  by  mere  want  of  evidence,  is  proved  by  your 
present  conduct.  You  are  now  actuall}7  trusting  all  the 
interests  which  this  promise  calls  you  to  venture  upon 
God,  somewhere  else ;  you  are  now  willing  to  stake  all 
in  your  own  hands  and  upon  your  own  management. 
Have  you  then  as  much  evidence  for  believing  your 
interests  secure  where  you  now  stake  them  as  you  would 
have  were  they  staked  on  God  and  his  word  of  promise  ? 
Say  ye  who  think  of  future  repentance ;  say  ye  who, 
determined  to  brave  it  out  as  ye  are,  still  admit  in  your 
hearts  the  superior  prospects  of  the  righteous?  Would 
you  not,  if  brought  to  the  issue  at  once  in  the  visible  pres- 
ence of  the  Greater,  prefer  rather  that  your  trust  were 
staked  upon  revelation  than  upon  its  present  basis?  And 
if  now  you  are  trusting  your  immortal  interests  where 
you  believe  there  is  the  less  security  of  the  two,  could  you 
not  trust  them,  if  you  chose,  where  you  believe  there  is 
the  greater  ? 


The  Power  of  Trust.  83 


The  gospel  bids  you  forsake  your  false  refuges  of  lies 
and  sins,  return  with  submission  and  love  to  God  your 
Creator  and  Redeemer,  and  secure  your  immortal  inter- 
ests at  his  hands.  The  record  has  his  signature.  They 
who  trust  in  it  are  living  proofs  of  his  faithfulness  so  far 
as  the  eye  can  trace  them  on  their  course.  If  then  you 
would  be  wise  for  eternity  do  as  they  do.  If  you  see 
ground  enough  to  render  it  wiser  in  your  view  to  trust 
your  immortal  interests  upon  God  and  his  promise,  than 
where  you  now  trust  them,  do  it :  nor  wait  another 
moment.  If  you  wish  for  increasing  light,  that  will  dawn 
upon  you  the  more,  as  you  walk  with  God  and  study  his 
word  on  your  future  way.  If  you  wish  for  actual  vision, 
that  will  not  come  till  each  one  takes  the  issue  of  his 
present  courses  in  eternity.  You  must  trust,  you  must 
venture  all,  beforehand.  Be  wise  then  now,  to  enter  with 
the  righteous  on  his  life  of  filial  trust,  and  thus  secure  his 
happy  inheritance  beyond  the  grave. 


THE    TRIAL    OF  ABRAHAM. 


GENESIS  XXII:  1—19. 

THIS  portion  of  sacred  history  informs  us  of  a  trial  to 
which  Abraham  was  subjected,  at  a  time  of  great  peace 
and  prosperity,  by  the  express  appointment  of  God.  The 
time  and  origin  of  the  trial  are  made  known  in  the  intro- 
ductory remark  :  v.  i, — "  It  came  to  pass  after  these  things 
that  God  did  tempt  Abraham." 

After  the  things  already  related — when  the  former  trials 
of  his  life  were  past ;  when  his  anxieties  about  Hagar 
and  Ishmael  were  relieved  by  the  express  promise  of  God 
in  regard  to  their  future  lot ;  when  the  difficulties  with 
Abimelech  were  settled  by  a  covenant  of  perpetual  amity  ; 
when  he  and  Sarah,  amid  temporal  prosperity,  were 
rejoicing  in  the  constant  presence  and  society  of  Isaac, 
now  arrived  at  the  years  of  opening  manhood  ;  and  when  at 
the  altar  of  devotion  which  he  had  erected  in  the  grove  of 
his  planting  at  Beersheba,  not  far  from  his  shaded  dwell- 
ing, he,  with  his  rejoicing  household,  was  wont  to  call  on 
the  name  of  Jehovah,  the  everlasting  God  ; — in  this  time 
of  profound  peace,  he  is  suddenly  called  to  undergo  this 
severest  of  all  his  trials. 

The  trial  came  upon  him  by  the  express  appointment  of 
God.  At  the  midnight  hour  probably, — for  he  "  arose  " 
;<  early  in  the  morning,"  it  is  said,  to  fulfil  the  appoint- 
ment— the  Lord  suddenly  appeared  and,  by  a  severe 
command,  "  did  tempt"  as  our  translation  renders  the 
Hebrew  verb,  or  as  the  word  is  more  properly  rendered, 
did  try  or  prove  "  Abraham."  The  old  English  transla- 
tion was  more  exact  upon  this  clause,  and  should  have 


86  The  Trial  of  Abraham. 


been  preserved  :  "  The  Lord  did  prove  Abraham."  The 
same  word  is  so  rendered  in  our  version  in  the  passage, 
Exodus  xvi :  4,  in  which  the  Lord  speaks  of  granting  Israel 
food,  in  the  quails  and  the  manna,  to  attract  them  to  his 
service  by  his  bounty — "  that  I  may  prove  them  whether 
they  will  walk  in  my  law  or  not."  For  God  by  bounties  or 
afflictions,  by  gifts  or  their  withdrawal,  to  put  men  to  the 
trial  &R&  proof  whether  they  will  obey  or  not,  is  but  employ- 
ing on  his  part  a  necessary  means  to  advance  his  honor 
and  their  welfare  :  though,  unavoidably,  it  may  afford  an 
occasion  for  men  to  be  tempted  by  their  own  lusts,  or  of 
the  devil,  to  do  evil  rather  than  obey.  But  God  tempteth 
no  one  neither  is  tempted,  to  evil. 

But  let,  us  look  at  the  trial  which,  at  this  time  of  pro- 
found peace,  the  Lord  suddenly  appointed  his  servant. 

Following  the  guidance  of  the  history,  which  presents 
the  distinct  parts  of  the  subject  in  their  true  order,  we 
will  notice, 

I.  The  command  of  God  imposing  the  trying  sacrifice; 

II.  The  obedience  of  Abraham  in  performing  the  com- 
mand ;  and 

III.  The  gain  that  resulted  to  both  at  the  close, — both 
God  the  Ruler  and  Abraham  his  servant. 

I.  The  command  of  God  which  imposed  the  trial  upon 
Abraham,  is  introduced  and  stated  in  these  words  :  v.  i,— 
"  God  said  unto  him,  Abraham  :  and  he  said,  Behold  here 
I  am.  (v.  2.)  And  he  said,  Take  now  thy  son,  thine  only 
son — whom  thou  lovest — Isaac  "  : — I  give,  in  this  reading^ 
not  the  order  of  our  translation,  which  introduces  the 
name  before  the  description  is  finished,  but  the  order  of 
the  Hebrew  which  with  fine  effect,  keeps  back  the  name, 
Isaac,  to  the  close  : — "  Take  Isaac,  and  get  thee  into  the 
land  of  Moriah  ;  and  offer  him  there  for  a  burnt  offering 
upon  one  of  the  mountains  which  I  will  tell  thee  of." 

Before  giving  the  trying  command,  God  summons  the 
presence  and  attention  of  Abraham,  that  he  may  give  ear 
to  some  order  which  he  is  to  receive  and  that  he  may  be 
ready  to  execute  it  :  "  Abraham,"  'my  servant,  whom  I 
have  called ;  with  whom  I  have  made  my  covenant  ; 


The  Trial  of  Abraham.  87 


whom  I  have  charged  to  walk  before  me  and  be  perfect: 
hear  my  voice/  Abraham,  like  a  ready  and  attentive  ser- 
vant, at  once  replies:  "  Behold,  here  I  am."  'Speak, 
Lord  ;  for  thy  servant  heareth.' 

The  order  is  now  pronounced  in  words  and  tones  which 
fall  with  deepening  terror  on  the  heart  of  this  father,  and 
this  inheritor  of  the  promises  ;  and  which  put  to  the 
utmost  task  his  faith  in  the  goodness  and  in  the  covenant 
of  his  God. 

"  Take  now  thy  son."  The  patriarch,  I  imagine,  at 
the  first  mention  of  his  son,  startled  as  with  some  strange 
apprehension,  might  have  kept  back  his  heart  from  the 
worst  awhile  by  wavering  between  his  two  sons,  after 
this  sort :  *  I  have  two  sons,  Ishmael  and  Isaac  : '  take  "  thy 
only  son  "  ;  '  but  both  are  only  sons  of  their  mothers  ' :  '  take 
the  one '  "  whom  thou  lovest  "  ;  '  but  I  love  them  both  : ' 
'  take  '  "  Isaac  "  !  '  ah  !  it  is  he,  whom  I  feared  ;  my  darling 
one,  the  child  of  Sarah  ;  the  son  of  most  precious  hopes  and 
promises.  Yet,  doubtless,  God  will  not  suffer  any  evil  to 
befal  the  child.  I  have  trusted  in  his  wisdom  and  good- 
ness ;  I  cling  to  the  express  promises  of  his  covenant ; 
and  what  he  says  I  will  do,  nothing  doubting.  Well,  I 
will  take  Isaac :  but  where  shall  I  take  him  ?  ' 

The  word  from  God  proceeds :  "  And  get  thee  into  the 
land  of  Moriah."  *  Well  ;  it  is  a  long  journey  from  Beer- 
sheba  to  Moriah  ;  sixty  miles,  perhaps,  through  wilder- 
ness and  over  mountain  tracts  ;  there  may  lie  on  our  path 
no  tent  of  any  hospitable  shepherd  with  whom  we  may 
find  entertainment  ;  there  may  be  perils  from  wild  beasts 
of  the  wilderness  or  from  robbers:  but  God  commands;  I 
will  trust  in  his  providence,  and  take  Isaac  to  the  land  of 
Moriah  :  but  what  shall  I  do  ivit/i  him  there  ?  ' 

The  order  from  heaven  proceeds  :  "  Offer  him  there  for 
a  burnt  offering  upon  one  of  the  mountains  which  I  will 
tell  thee  of."  '  Can  it  be?  Do  I  hear  the  order  aright? 
There  is  no  mistake.  The  command  is  on  the  ear,  dis- 
tinct as  the  tones  of  heaven.'  "  Offer  him  there  for  a 
burnt  offering."  What  a  multitude  of  thoughts  rush 
upon  the  heart  of  the  father  to  crush  it,  how  many  sug- 


88  The  Trial  of  Abraham. 


gestions  against  such  a  deed  are  ready  to  spring  up,  to 
prevent  obedience  :  which  nothing  but  unwavering  faith 
in  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God  can  surmount,  and 
render  that  heart  free  to  obey.  *  Can  I  endure  to  make 
such  an  offering?  It  would  be  hard  to  part  with  this 
beloved  son  by  death,  even  in  the  usual  course  of  provi- 
dence by  disease  ;  it  would  be  harder  still  to  have  him 
taken  away  from  me  by  the  hand  of  violence,  were  the 
blow  struck  by  a  stranger  :  but  to  have  this  arm  inflict 
the  death-wound,  —  the  arm  of  the  father  —  the  arm  that 
has  so  often  clung  around  him  with  affection  —  the  arm  on 
which  he  has  always  rested  for  safety  :  how  can  my  heart 
be  nerved  to  the  deed  ?  But  God  commands  :  and  shall 
I  not  hush  every  distressing  emotion  with  the  thought 
that  his  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness  are  back  of  me, 
giving  direction,  by  explicit  command,  to  my  will  and  my 
arm.  I  have  been  wont  to  yield  implicit  obedience, 
trusting  in  his  wisdom  and  goodness,  and  in  his  word  of 
promise  :  and  shall  I  not  do  it  now  ?  Yet  never  before 
have  I  received  from  him  any  command  which  seemed  so 
contrary  to  his  character  for  wisdom  and  goodness  and  so 
contradictory  to  his  own  promises,  as  this.  What  pos- 
sible honor  to  God  or  pleasure  can  be  derived  from  a 
human  sacrifice?  How  will  the  nations  be  shocked  at  so 
unnatural  a  deed  on  the  part  of  a  father,  and  reproach  the 
God  whom  I  serve  for  his  cruel  exaction  ?  What  too  will 
become  of  his  promise  to  me  :  "  In  Isaac  shall  thy  seed  be 
called?"  Shall  posterity  arise  from  the  ashes  of  the 
dead  ?  I  am  now  left  with  a  bare  command  from  God  ;  a 
severe  command  :  no  explanation  accompanies  it,  no 
assignment  of  reasons,  no  promise  :  it  is  sole  and  simple 
authority.  He  seems  purposely  to  have  withdrawn  from 
me  every  support  out  of  himself  and  left  me  to  lean  on 
himself  alone  :  as  if  to  see  what  is  the  respect  I  have  for 
his  will.  I  know  that  he  commands  the  sacrifice.  I  can- 
not question  his  right  to  dispose  of  the  temporal  life  of 
men.  Nor  is  it  my  place  to  wait  till  I  see  how  he  will 
defend  his  honor  and  my  character,  or  how  he  will  fulfil 
his  own  promise  to  me,  before  I  obey  his  known  will. 


The  Trial  of  Abraham.  89 


His  command  is  upon  me :  and  1  know  that  I  am  safe, 
and  safe  only  in  obeying  his  voice.  His  command  is 
upon  me  :  and  I  know  that  he  can  and  will  defend  his 
honor  and  protect  my  character  and  fulfil  his  own  promise 
when  I  obey.  Whether  I  can  see  the  particular  way  in 
which  he  will  do  it  or  not,  I  know  that  he  will  do  it  in 
some  way.  I  resolve,  therefore,  to  leave  all  in  his  hands, 
and  follow  his  will.  1  will  take  Isaac,  whom  I  have 
received  from  God  as  one  raised  up  from  the  very  dead, 
and,  in  the  land  of  Moriah  and  on  the  mount  which  shall 
be  shown  to  me,  I  will  offer  him  to  God  as  a  burnt-offer- 
ing ;  trusting  that  the  same  power  which  has  done  so 
much  to.  fulfil  the  promise  already,  will,  in  this  last 
extremity,  raise  up  his  life  from  the  dead,  if  needs  be.' 

But  to  resolve  on  obedience  is  easier  far  than  to  per- 
form :  and  the  spirit  of  obedience  is  proved  to  exist,  and  is 
ripened  into  full  strength,  only  as  it  is  carried  out  into 
execution  in  the  particular  deeds  of  the  life.  Let  us, 
then, 

II.  Consider  the  obedience  of  Abraham,  as  made  mani- 
fest in  being  carried  out  to  the  full  in  the  performance  of 
the  commanded  offering. 

His  respect  to  the  will  of  God  was  clearly  made  mani- 
fest to  rise  supreme  above  every  opposing  consideration ; 
because  he  not  only  resolved  in  his  heart  to  obey  that  will 
when  it  required  the  greatest  temporal  sacrifice  he  could 
make,  but  he  began  at  once  to  put  the  resolve  into  execu- 
tion, and  carried  it  forward  through  every  obstacle  to 
the  accomplishment. 

He  began  at  once  to  put  his  resolve  of  obedience  into 
execution  :  as  the  history,  immediately  after  reciting  the 
command  of  God,  proceeds  to  say  (v.  3) :  "  And  Abraham 
rose  up  early  in  the  morning  and  saddled  his  ass  ;  and 
took  two  of  his  young  men  with  him,  and  Isaac  his  son  : 
and  clave  the  wood  for  the  burnt  offering."  At  the 
earliest  dawn  of  clay,  this  prompt  and  faithful  patriarch 
provides  the  necessary  means  for  accomplishing  the  offer- 
ing. He  orders  his  faithful  beast  of  burthen  to  be  made 
ready  for  carrying  provisions  and  relieving  him  in  his  old 

13 


90  The  Trial  of  Abraham. 


age  of  the  tedious  foot-walk,  in  which  the  rest  of  the 
party  in  the  vigor  of  their  youth  are  to  engage.  Two  of 
his  young  men-servants  are  selected  to  accompany  him 
on  the  expedition  with  their  services,  and  these,  with 
Isaac,  form  the  party.  By  his  orders  wood  is  taken, 
probably  from  a  seasoned  pile  near  his  tent,  and  cleft  for 
burning  :,  that  everything  may  be  ready  on  his  arrival  at 
the  mount  of  sacrifice.  While  this  work  of  preparation 
is  going  forward,  no  suspicion  or  alarm,  it  would  seem,  is 
awakened  in  Sarah  or  in  any  of  the  numerous  household. 
The  only  interest  which  she  or  they  appear  to  take  in  this 
little  group,  with  their  patriarch  head,  in  their  prepara- 
tions for  departure,  is  that  of  an  absence  for  a  .few  days 
on  some  ordinary  expedition.  Doubtless  Abraham  re- 
vealed not  the  dreadful  secret  even  to  Sarah,  but  kept  it 
locked  up  in  his  own  breast,  that  she  and  all  he  loved 
might,  with  him,  abide  the  issue.  With  what  a  cool  and 
deliberate  purpose  of  obedience,  then,  must  he  have  gone 
through  this  work  of  preparation  before  his  household, 
not . to  betray,  by  any  outward  signals  of  look,  tone  or 
action,  the  unwonted  emotions  at  work  in  his  heart ;  not 
to  excite  any  suspicion  in  others  of  the  dreadful  task  he 
was  preparing  to  accomplish  ! 

All  things  being  in  readiness,  he  now  proceeds  to  carry 
out  his  purpose  of  obedience  through  every  obstacle  to 
its  accomplishment.  The  history  thus  mentions  the 
departure  (v.  3) :  He  "  rose  up  and  went" — i.e.,  started  to 
go,  for  it  is  the  journey  begun,  and  not  the  journey  accom- 
plished, which  is  here  spoken  of — "  unto  the  place  of  which 
God  had  told  him."  The  moment  of  departure  is  one  of 
deep  interest  ever  to  both  fragments  of  the  parting  house- 
hold. The  oneness  that  unites  all  hearts  seeks  expression, 
at  the  time  of  separation,  in  farewells  and  blessings ;  in 
pledges  of  remembrance  ;  in  hopes  of  re-union.  But  now 
one  heart — that  of  the  patriarch  head  of  the  household- 
bears  on  it  a  load  it  must  not  express,  it  must  not  betray. 
But  there  is  faith  in  God  to  bear  up,  at  this  hour,  that 
heart  with  all  its  load.  He  is  on  his  course  of  obedience 
to  God.  So,  as  the  party  take  leave  of  their  friends  at 


TJic  Trial  of  Abraham*  91 


Beersheba — Isaac  of  his  mother  and  the  domestics — the 
young  men  of  their  fellow-servants  and  their  mistress— 
the  patriarch,  with  manly  composure,  pronounces  his 
benediction  on  the  household  ;  then  mounts  his  animal  to 
lead  the  way  ;  and  the  party,  turning  their  faces  north- 
ward, depart  for  the  land  of  Moriah.  (v.  4.)  "  Then  on 
the  third  day  Abraham  lifted  up  his  eyes  and*  saw  the 
place  afar  off."  For  two  days  the  party  had  been  advanc- 
ing. Isaac  and  the  wood  are  constantly  in  sight  of  the 
patriarch  ;  the  dreadful  work  appointed  him  is  ever  in 
prospect ;  yet  with  deliberate  purpose  he  moves  steadily 
forward.  There  might  have  been  bright  and  beautiful 
scenes  of  nature  through  which  they  passed  during  these 
days,  which  Isaac  and  the  young  men  in  their  freedom 
from  care  admired,  and  called  upon  the  patriarch  to 
admire  with  them  :  and  though  his  heart  was  charged 
with  graver  cares,  yet  doubtless  he  refused  not  to  admire 
with  them  the  glorious  works  of  God.  They  may  talk  of 
other  days  and  of  the  friends  they  have  left  behind  them  : 
yet  does  he  not  refuse  to  turn  from  the  painful  prospect 
before  him  to  hold  communion  in  their  feelings  and  joys. 
His  heart  is  fixed,  trusting  in  God  ;  and  so  he  has  leisure 
to  mingle  in  the  interests  of  others;  and  does  not  betray 
to  them  the  dreadful  object  of  his  solemn  and  deliberate 
purpose.  But  now,  on  the  third  day,  a  mountain  range 
is  seen,  loading  with  its  green  wooded  domes  and  its  grey 
masses  of  rock  the  northern  horizon.  On  one  of  these 
mountain  tops  appears  the  signal  of  heaven — the  cloud  of 
light  and  glory — noting  it  as  the  place  chosen  of  the  Lord 
for  the  offering.  It  is  that  mount  Moriah  on  which  in 
after  times  the  temple  of  Solomon  was  built  ;f  that  moun- 
tain elevation  on  which  Christ,  the  Only  Begotten  Son  of 
the  Father,  the  promised  seed  of  Abraham,  was  offered 
up  for  the  sin  of  the  world  that  he  might  extend  the 
blessings  of  salvation  to  all  the  families  of  the  earth. 
But  now,  overlooking  the  hills  and  valleys  far  around,  it 
raises  its  loft)7  and  rocky  summit  into  the  sky,  in  all  the 

f  2  Chron.  iii :   i. 


92  The  Trial  of  Abraham. 


silence  and  rugged  grandeur  of  nature.  No  voice  of  man 
is  heard,  no  mark  of  his  industry  seen,  on  this  vast  altar 
pile  in  the  temple  of  creation. 

But  the  place  is  approached :  and  now  the  patriarch 
must  set  himself,  more  seriously  and  exclusively,  to 
accomplish  the  sad  duty  before  him.  (v.  5,  6.)  "And 
AbraharA  said  unto  the  young  men,  Abide  ye  here  with 
the  ass :  and  I  and  the  lad  will  go  yonder  and  worship, 
and  come  again  to  you.  And  Abraham  took  the  wood  of 
the  burnt  offering,  and  laid  it  upon  Isaac  his  son  :  and  he 
took  the  fire  in  his  hands  and  a  knife  :  and  they  went  both 
of  them  together."  Another  step  is  now  taken  towards 
the  execution  of  his  purpose.  The  young  men-servants 
would  be  in  his  way  at  the  serious  hour  of  sacrifice  :  they 
might  disturb  his  composure  or  effectually  resist  the 
offering.  They  are  left,  therefore,  to  wait  till  his  return. 
But  what  mean  these  words  of  Abraham  at  parting  :  "  We 
will  come  again  to  you."  Had  the  dead  ever  returned  to 
life  ?  or  did  he  now  yield  up  his  purpose,  and  resolve, 
after  all,  that  in  the  last  extremity  he  would  spare  the 
lad  ?  No.  But  he  believes  in  the  promise  of  God  ;  "  In 
Isaac  shall  thy  seed  be  called  "  ;  and  the  hope  of  a  resur- 
rection to  life  has  sprung  up  in  his  heart.  So  he  goes 
forth  to  ascend  the  heights  of  Moriah,  Isaac,  the  uncon- 
scious victim,  bearing  the  fuel,  to  be  consumed  together 
with  it ;  he  carrying  in  his  own  hand  the  knife  and  the 
fire,  the  weapons  of  destruction.  Oh  !  as  on  that  lonely 
walk  they  pass  through  the  forests  at  the  foot  of  Moriah 
and  clamber  up  its  sides  together,  will  not  the  father 
relent  and  give  way  ?  No  ;  the  command  of  God  is  upon 
him  :  that  command  nerves  his  heart  to  obey  and  to  cast 
all  its  anxieties  and  cares  upon  God.  Up  as  they  ascend 
from  one  elevation  to  another,  his  purpose  remains  settled 
on  faith  in  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God,  firm  as  each 
pinnacle  of  rock  on  its  everlasting  basis.  But  the  silence 
of  their  walk  is,  for  a  moment,  interrupted  by  this  short 
dialogue,  (v.  7,  8.)  "  And  Isaac  spake  unto  Abraham  his 
father,  and  said  :  My  father:  and  he  said,  Here  am  I,  my 
son.  And  he  said,  Behold  the  fire  and  the  wood  :  but 


The  Trial  of  Abraham.  93 


where  is  the  lamb  for  a  burnt  offering  ?  And  Abraham 
said,  My  son,  God  will  provide  himself  a  lamb  for  a  burnt 
offering."  The  loving  and  confiding  eye  of  Isaac,  striking 
upon  the  eye  of  the  father,  and  sending  such  a  piercing 
question  to  his  inmost  soul,  must  have  overpowered  a 
mind  that  was  not  immovably  fixed  in  its  purpose.  But 
Abraham  remained  unmoved  :  and,  not  to  disclose  as  yet 
the  real  victim,  referred  the  whole  matter  to  God  to  pro- 
vide a  lamb  for  a  victim — the  innocent  lamb  before  him, 
that  had  been  nurtured  in  his  own  bosom,  (v.  8,  9.)  "  So 
they  went  both  of  them  together.  And  they  came  to  the 
place  which  God  had  told  him  of."  The  place  where  he 
had  seen  the  signal  of  God  resting — the  cloud  of  light 
and  glory.  Here  on  the  table  land  of  the  mountain  top  ; 
on  some  open  area  where  the  altar  may  rest,  and  upon 
which  the  sun  is  pouring  down  his  meridian  rays;  sur- 
rounded by  the  darkness  and  thickets  of  the  forest ;  in 
this  temple,  built  of  God  ;  stand  the  father  and  son,  to 
make  ready  for  the  sacrifice,  (v.  9.)  "  And  Abraham 
built  an  altar  there,  and  laid  the  wood  in  order."  Sad 
task,  indeed  !  Each  stone  Avhich  they  bring  to  the  struc- 
ture, each  piece  of  fragrant  turf  which  they  lay  upon  it, 
appears  to  the  patriarch  already  to  teem  with  the  blood 
of  Isaac,  and  puts  a  load  on  his  heart  heavier  far  than  it 
does  upon  the  earth.  Yet  he  is  fixed  immovably  in  pur- 
pose :  the  structure  is  completed  :  the  wood  laid  upon  it 
in  order,  suited  to  the  burning.  The  hour  of  sacrifice  has 
now  come.  The  victim  must  be  taken,  bound,  slain.  The 
purpose  of  Abraham  can  no  longer  remain  concealed 
from  his  son.  How  now  will  he  advance  to  his  task?  in 
silence  and  with  force  ?  will  he  suddenly  lay  hands  upon 
his  son,  and,  in  his  haste  and  violence,  appear  unto  him 
as  the  frantic  maniac?  What  then  will  Isaac  do?  In  the 
solitude  of  the  forest,  far  from  his  loved  mother  and  her 
household,  beyond  the  hearing  of  the  young  men,  no 
stranger  nigh,  despairing  of  any  pity  in  the  breast  of  a 
father,  so  alienated  and  maddened  with  delirious  phrensy, 
will  he  seize  a  billet  from  the  altar,  and  with  equal  fury 
rush  to  disarm  the  father,  or  take  life  for  life  ?  No  :  the 


94  The  Trial  of  Abraham. 


mind  that  is  fulfilling  the  will  of  God,  is  ever  calm  and 
rational ;  and  seeks,  in  accomplishing  its  purpose,  the 
methods  of  wisdom.  No  doubt,  avoiding  every  show  of 
force,  in  a  cool  and  rational  manner,  Abraham  disclosed 
the  dread  secret  so  long  laboring  in  his  breast,  by  entering 
into  free  and  serious  conversation  with  his  son.  There  in 
the  deep  solitude  beside  the  altar,  in  the  presence  of  God, 
he  tells  him,  doubtless,  of  the  command  which  he  has 
received  ;  to  fulfil  which,  he  has  taken  the  journey  with 
him  and  brought  him  up  the  mount.  He  may  reason 
with  him,  from  the  signal  of  divine  glory  which  both  had 
seen  that  morning,  hovering  over  the  place,  that  truly 
God  had  ordered  and  was  superintending  the  strange  and 
trying  sacrifice.  He  may  reason  with  him  on  the  obliga- 
tion that  now  rests  upon  both  alike  to  comply  with  this 
most  trying  will  of  God  ;  on  the  faith  which  it  becomes 
both  to  put,  notwithstanding  this  season  of  darkness,  in 
the  goodness  and  in  the  promises  of  God,  and  the  expec- 
tation which  both  may  cherish  that,  after  the  hour  of 
sacrifice,  there  will  be  a  resurrection  to  life  again,  and  a 
happier  meeting  than  now.  For  it  could  not  be,  that  Abra- 
ham would  have  refrained  from  inculcating  upon  his  child 
the  duty  of  submission,  at  the  hour  of  death  ;  nor  would 
he  leave  the  matter,  if  it  could  possibly  be  settled  thus 
peaceably  by  voluntary  submission,  to  come  to  a  violent 
contest  of  physical  force.  Isaac,  too,  whether  he  had  ever 
yielded  his  heart  to  God  before  or  not,  doubtless  at  this 
solemn  hour  bowed  in  submission  to  the  trying  will  of 
God  ;  and  consented,  like  his  great  Archetype,  the  Son  of 
God,  to  surrender  himself  a  voluntary  victim  for  the 
sacrifice.  For  he  resisted  not :  and  though  called  a  lad, 
he  might,  with  that  title  as  then  used,  have  been  of  full 
age  ;  and,  in  his  vigorous  youth,  have  proved  a  match  for 
the  physical  strength  of  the  aged  patriarch.  Gently 
then,  we  may  believe,  the  hand  of  the  father  winds  the 
cords  around  his  yielding  son  :  and  so  "  he  bound  Isaac 
and  laid  him  on  the  altar  upon  the  wood."  The  agoniz- 
ing moment  has  come.  The  trembling  victim  lies, 
expecting  the  pangs  of  death.  The  heart-aching  offerer  of 


TJic  Trial  of  Abraham.  95 


the  sacrifice  stands  ready  to  slay.  (v.  10.)  "And  Abraham 
stretched  forth  his  hand  and  took  the  knife  to  slay  his  son." 
He  grasps  the  deadly  weapon  ;  he  raises  his  arm  ;  the  fatal 
blow  -  -is  arrested  by  a  voice  from  heaven,  (v.  11,  12.) 
"  The  angel  of  the  Lord  called  unto  him,  Abraham, 
Abraham  :  and  he  said,  Here  am  I.  And  he  said,  Lay 
not  thine  hand  upon  the  lad,  neither  do  thou  anything 
unto  him."  The  sacrifice  is  thus  prevented  at  the  last 
moment,  by  the  same  authority  which  had  commanded  it. 
For  it  was  enough.  The  trial  of  Abraham  was  complete  ; 
and  his  obedience  finished.  But  one  muscular  effort  of 
his  arm  remained ;  and  that  was  kept  back  in  mercy.  For 
it  was  not  blood  that  Jehovah  sought,  but  obedience.  The 
command  is  obeyed,  to  the  very  last  act,  in  the  spirit  and 
intention  of  Abraham.  All  who  ever  hear  of  it  will 
acknowledge  that  he  would  have  struck  the  blow,  and 
have  completed  his  task,  had  it  not  been  for  this  sudden 
stay  put  on  the  whole  proceeding  by  an  order  from  the 
Lord.  The  trial  is  closed  ;  and  God  has  secured  the 
result  at  which  he  aimed;  a  result  to  Himself  and  his 
servant  full  worthy  of  the  whole  trial.  But  let  us,  more 
particularly,  consider, 

III.  The  gain  that  resulted  from  the  trial  to  both  par- 
ties— God  the  Ruler,  and  Abraham  his  servant. 

The  history  shows  us,  that,  without  any  evil  resulting 
to  Isaac,  Abraham  obtained,  through  his  persevering 
obedience  in  the  trial,  the  approving  testimony  of  God ; 
the  joy  of  a  thank-offering  for  delivering  mercy  ;  and  an 
assurance  stronger  than  ever  of  an  interest  in  the 
promises. 

No  evil  has  befallen  Isaac.  The  order  from  heaven, 
"  Lay  not  thine  hand  upon  the  lad,"  has  saved  him  harm- 
less. The  sharp  trial,  too,  of  the  moment  when  he 
learned  the  will  of  the  Lord  and  submitted  himself  as  a 
victim,  has  passed  away  forever;  while  the  consciousness 
of  his  own  submission,  and  thankfulness  to  God  for 
deliverance,  remain  as  permanent  sources  of  satisfaction 
in  his  future  life. 


g6  The  Trial  of  Abraham. 


Abraham,  by  means  of  the  trial,  secured  to  himself  the 
approving  testimony  of  God.  The  Angel  of  the  Lord,  call- 
ing out  of  heaven  to  stay  the  procedure  of  Abraham,  pro- 
nounces the  testimony  :  (v.12.)  "  For  now  I  know  that  thou 
fearest  God,  seeing  thou  hast  not  withheld  thy  son,  thine 
only  son  from  me."  God  has  witnessed  the  patriarch  on 
all  his  way  of  obedience.  He  has  seen  him  in  his  faith 
and  obedience  persevering  through  every  obstacle  to  the 
last,  putting  honor  on  his  character,  increasing  his  own 
holiness  ;  and  now  the  hour  of  his  testimony  is  come.  He 
is  pleased  :  and  gives  out  a  testimony  of  approbation  that 
will  abide  a  source  of  joy  to  the  patriarch  long  after  the 
pangs  of  his  three  days  of  trial  are  gone.  "  Now  I  know  " 
is  the  heavenly  testimony,  "  that  thou  fearest  God."  '  I 
know  that  thy  respect  is  supreme  above  every  opposing 
consideration  : '  "  seeing  thou  hast  not  withheld  thy  son, 
thine  only  son  from  me."  '  The  evidence  is  out,  in  thy 
favor  and  to  my  honor.  I  can  now  speak  to  all  with  cer- 
tainty about  Abraham.  I  can  point  to  him  as  having 
gone  through  this  trial  with  honor  to  me  :  and  say  to  any 
one  in  my  kingdom  ;  That  is  the  man  that  truly  respects 
me.  I  can  now  publish  the  evidence  given  in  this  trial  as 
an  example  to  my  kingdom.  That  man  1  can  always  trust 
to  obey  my  orders.  The  fruits  of  righteousness  abound 
in  him  to  my  glory.  I  am  honored  greatly,  and  my  ser- 
vant Abraham  advanced  in  his  faith  and  obedience/  And 
so  at  the  close  of  the  trial  God  and  he  rejoice  together  in 
the  approving  testimony  obtained  by  faithful  obedience. 

To  this  approving  testimony  there  was  added  the  joy 
of  a  thank-offering,  provided  by  the  delivering  grace  of 
God.  (v.  13.)  "  And  Abraham  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and 
looked,  and  behold  behind  him  a  ram  caught  in  a  thicket 
by  his  horns :  and  Abraham  went  and  took  the  ram,  and 
offered  him  up  for  a  burnt  offering  in  the  stead  of  his  son." 
As  Abraham  stood  with  Isaac  by  the  altar,  and  beheld 
the  substitute  which  the  delivering  mercy  of  God  had 
provided,  what  a  tide  of  thankfulness  rises  in  his  heart ! 
The  love  of  God  that  seemed  hid  awhile  behind  a  passing 
cloud  has  broke  forth  in  full  luster  upon  his  soul :  and  in 


The  Trial  of  Abraham.  97 

the  smoke  of  the  sacrifice  substituted  for  Isaac,  he  wafts 
up  to  heaven  the  lively  breathings  of  joy,  the  glowing 
emotions  of  thankfulness  ;  for  Gocl  and  he  rejoice 
together  more  sweetly  than  ever  in  the  sun-light  of 
deliverance,  (v.  14.)  "And  Abraham  called  the  name  of 
the  place  Jehovah-Jireh  :  as  it  is  said  to  this  day,  in  the 
mount  of  the  Lord  it  shall  be  seen," — or,  as  the  Hebrew 
is  better  rendered,  "  In  the  mount  the  Lord  will  be  seen 
or  appear."  His  grateful  testimony  for  God  he  left  for- 
ever there  in  the  name  he  put  upon  the  place :  and  to  the 
day  of  Moses,  and  to  this  day  even,  it  is  a  proverb  among 
the  faithful,  that  in  the  mount  of  difficulty  and  trial  to  his 
people,  God  will  appear; — that  their  extremity  of  want 
is  God's  opportunity  to  come  with  delivering  grace. 

In  addition  to  the  approving  testimony  of  God  and 
great  joy  in  his  delivering  grace,  Abraham  obtained  also  a 
fuller  assurance  than  ever  of  his  interest  in  the  promises. 
His  hope  is  caused  to  abound  the  more  in  the  certainty 
and  joy  of  their  fulfilment.  There  might,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  teachings  of  a  resurrection  during  the  trial, 
have  sprung  up  in  his  mind  more  enlarged  views  than 
ever  of  the  extent  of  the  promises,  and,  in  consequence  of 
this  deliverance,  greater  confidence  in  the  purpose  of  God 
to  accomplish  them  all.  But  he  was  not  left  to  reap  hope 
from  experience  alone.  The  Lord,  for  his  great  pleasure 
and  joy  in  his  servant,  comes  nigh  to  give  him  direct 
assurance,  (v.  15.)  "And  the  Angel  of  the  Lord  called 
unto  Abraham  out  of  heaven  the  second  time,  (v.  16)  And 
said,  By  myself  have  I  sworn,  saith  the  Lord,  for  because 
thou  hast  done  this  thing  and  hast  not  withheld  thy  son, 
thine  only  son:  (v.  17)  That  in  blessing  I  will  bless  thee, 
and  in  multiplying  I  will  multiply  thy  seed  as  the  stars  of 
heaven,  and  as  the  sand  which  is  upon  the  sea  shore  ;  and 
thy  seed  shall  possess  the  gate  of  his  enemies,  (v.  18.) 
And  in  thy  seed  shall  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  be 
blessed  :  because  thou  hast  obeyed  my  voice."  These 
promises  which  were  first  announced  to  him  at  the  time 
of  his  extraordinary  call :  which  were  repeated  to  him  and 
sealed  as  a  covenant  by  the  rite  of  circumcision,  at  the 


98  The  Trial  of  Abraham. 


annunciation  of  the  birth  of  Isaac  :  are  now  re-pronounced, 
as  made  sure  by  his  having  stood  the  trial  faithfully,  and 
are  now  prefaced,  as  never  before,  by  that  highest  and 
most  solemn  of  all  assurances  which  can  be  given — an 
oath  :  the  Lord,  as  he  could  swear  by  no  greater,  swear- 
ing by  himself:  "  By  myself  have  I  sworn,  saith  the  Lord." 
So  Abraham,  as  it  is  represented  in  the  epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  "  after  he  had  patiently  endured,  obtained  the 
promise  "  :  and  both  God  and  he  rejoiced  together  over 
greater  security  obtained  on  earth  to  the  plans  of  good 
included  in  the  promises. 

(v.  19.)  "  So  Abraham,"  bearing  these  new  and  perma- 
nent spiritual  treasures  within  his  joyous  heart,  "  re- 
turned "  with  Isaac  u  unto  his  young  men,  and  they  rose 
up  and  went  together  to  Beersheba." 

Such  is  the  close  of  this  extraordinary  trial  of  char- 
acter. The  life  that  God,  the  Supreme  Disposer,  might 
have  taken,  and  over  which  the  dark  cloud  of  trial  hung, 
is  spared.  Abraham,  for  the  faith  and  obedience  which 
he  has  strengthened  in  .his  own  heart,  and  by  which  he 
has  publicly  honored  the  authority  of  God,  takes  with 
him,  to  his  dwelling  at  Beersheba,  and  to  his  altar  of  devo- 
tion in  the  grove,  for  his  after  life,  the  approving  testi- 
mony of  God  ;  a  heart  made  grateful  by  delivering  grace  ; 
and  a  hope  made  strong  by  two  immutable  things — in 
which  it  is  impossible  for  God  to  lie — his  utterance  of  the 
promises  and  his  oath  for  their  fulfilment. 

This  trial  of  Abraham,  the  history  of  which  has 
engaged  our  attention,  is  fraught  with  instruction  to  the 
people  of  God  in  all  ages. 

I  observe, 

i.  That  this  trial,  besides  its  design  of  proving  the 
character  of  Abraham,  serves  to  illustrate,  by  an  analogy 
near  to  our  hearts,  the  great  love  of  God  in  making  the 
offering  of  his  Only  Begotten  Son.  No  one,  who  observes 
how  God  began  and  carried  forward  in  those  early  ages 
his  school  of  spiritual  instruction,  by  setting  up  in  out- 
ward forms  typical  analogies  and  illustrations  of  the 
spiritual,  as  in  the  very  institution  of  sacrifice  ;  or  who 
notices  the  striking  peculiarities  attendant  on  the  burnt- 


The  Trial  of  Abraham.  99 


offering  assigned  to  Abraham,  will  fail  to  see  shadowed 
forth  in  it  the  great  offering  made  of  that  seed  of  Abra- 
ham, greater  than  Isaac,  who  has  come  to  bless  all  the 
families  of  the  earth,  the  Only  Begotten  Son  of  the  Father. 
A  father  called  to  yield  up  his  only  son  in  sacrifice — the 
stroke  of  death  to  be  inflicted  by  his  own  hands — the 
mount  of  Moriah  selected  as  the  place — the  voluntary 
submission  of  the  victim  at  the  time  of  sacrifice— all  serve 
to  set  forth  the  trial  of  that  hour  when  the  sword  of 
Jehovah  was  lifted  up  against  Him  that  was  his  Fellow, 
bowing  meekly  to  receive  the  stroke  on  this  very  mount  : 
while  the  change  of  the  human  offering  for  the  ram  that 
the  Lord  provided,  serves  to  set  forth  the  love  that  made 
that  great  offering  on  Calvary,  a  substitute  for  the 
penalty  of  death  incurred  by  man  for  his  sin.  Whether 
God  made  such  a  thing  known  at  the  time  to  Abraham  or 
not,  whether  Abraham  saw  in  it  any  typical  teaching  of 
the  future  or  not,  he  has  lived  to  see  it  in  his  heavenly 
abode  :  and  to  all  Christians  on  earth,  it  has  set  forth  an 
illustration,  clear  and  affecting  to  the  heart,  because  most 
near  and  intimate  to  themselves  in  their  own  parental. and 
filial  relations. 

And,  Oh  !  what  a  day  to  Abraham  in  heaven  was  that 
when  Jesus,  his  son  as  to  the  flesh,  God's  Son  as  to  his 
Eternal  Spirit,  walked  upon  those  same  rugged  heights 
bearing  the  heavy  load  of  his  cross  !  It  is  not  now  the 
solitary  mount,  without  inhabitant,  and  covered  with  the 
thickets  of  the  forest.  The  splendid  temple  of  Jehovah, 
and  the  palaces  of  the  kings,  with  their  lofty  towers  and 
gilded  domes,  occupy  those  heights  :  and  the  soldiers  of 
Caesar  and  the  rabble  of  Jerusalem  accompany,  with 
clamorous  tread,  the  walk  of  Jesus.  Yet  onward  he  goes, 
deserted  of  friends,  surrounded  by  the  din  of  the  thought- 
less or  the  reviling  :  and  submits  to  be  nailed  to  the  cross 
and  to  die,  an  offering  to  God  substituted  in  behalf  of  the 
believing  for  the  eternal  fire-offering,  which  the  law 
exacted  of  guilty  man.  If  tears  could  flow  in  heaven, 
must  not  that  venerable  patriarch,  touched  with  fellow 
sympathies  gained  in  his  school  of  trial,  have  wept  that 


ioo  The  Trial  of  Abraham. 

day  at  the  thought  of  what  was  passing  in  the  hearts  of 
the  Eternal  Father  and  his  Son.  There  could  now  be  no 
exchange  in  the  victim,  as  was  made  in  his  case  ;  yet  a 
resurrection  to  life  was  in  prospect  to  this  Son  of  Promise  : 
and  the  patriarch  could  rejoice  that,  on  that  rising  to  life 
again,  He  should  have  a  seed  that  should  prolong  their 
happy  days  to  eternity.  Such  thoughts  have  often  come 
into  the  minds  of  Christians  on  earth,  as  they  have  read 
the  history  of  the  patriarch's  trial,  and  aided  their  fellow- 
ship with  Christ  in  his  sufferings  ;  and  caused  their  hearts 
to  abound  with  thanksgivings  to  God,  for  his  great  love 
wherewith  he  hath  loved  them  in  providing  this  Lamb 
from  his  own  bosom  as  a  sacrifice  to  take  away  their  sins. 

But  looking  to  the  more  immediate  design  of  the  trial 
of  Abraham  as  a  trial  of  character,  I  observe, 

2.  That  God  appoints  trials  to  his  people,  out  of  faithful 
regard  to  their  highest  welfare. 

The  welfare  of  his  people  depends  on  the  cultivation  in 
their  own  hearts  of  a  spirit  of  faith  and  obedience  towards 
God  ;  for  by  this  spirit  only  can  they  honor  him  before 
his  kingdom,  or  receive  to  themselves  the  benefits  of  his 
wisdom,  power  and  goodness.  But  in  order  to  improve 
and  strengthen  such  a  spirit  in  man,  it  is  not  well  that  he 
be  left  to  uninterrupted  prosperity  in  all  things.  His 
heart  is  so  inclined  to  be  its  own  master,  to  follow  its  own 
devices,  to  rest  on  temporal  possessions  and  joys  for  all, 
that  if  no  trial  from  the  hand  of  God  come  to  cross  and 
thwart  its  perverse  tendencies,  it  withdraws  itself  almost 
insensibly  from  supreme  trust  in  God  and  implicit  obedi- 
ence to  his  will.  Had  he  been  left  in  his  prosperity  with- 
out this  trial,  Abraham  might  have  found  his  heart,  even 
at  the  very  altar  of  his  devotion  in  the  grove,  withdraw- 
ing graduall}T  from  God  and  settling  down  on  the  gifts 
already  accumulated  around  him  as  his  portion.  Faithful 
regard  to  his  welfare  moved  God  to  appoint  a  severe 
trial,  which  would  hedge  up  his  way  against  the  idola- 
trous love  of  anything,  however  dear,  which  he  might 
call  his  own  ;  and  bring  him  to  such  straits,  as  that  he 
should  cast  himself  with  all  his  possessions  and  wants 


The  Trial  of  Abraham.  toi 


afresh  on  the  care  of  God  in  faith,  and  submit  all  to  the 
will  of  God  in  implicit  obedience.  The  appointment 
therefore  was  not  arbitrary  and  gratuitous ;  but  dictated 
by  faithful  regard  to  Abraham,  that  he  might  be  made  to 
partake  more  fully  as  a  servant  in  the  joys  of  the  divine 
holiness. 

The  people  of  God  therefore  should  ever  account  the 
trials,  which  come  upon  them  on  their  path  of  duty,  as  his 
wise  appointments.  Though  they  may  not  see  the  wis- 
dom and  goodness  of  just  such  trials  and  afflictions  as 
befal  them,  yet  that  is  precisely  the  discipline  which  a 
faithful  God  sees  them  to  need :  to  be  put  to  the  proof  by 
trials,  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  which  they  do  not 
particularly  see  at  the  time :  trials,  the  wisdom  and  good- 
ness of  which  lie  concealed,  as  yet,  in  the  breast  of  God  : 
trials,  which  call  off  their  hearts  from  self-reliance,  and 
dependence  on  creatures,  that  they  may  rest  alone  on 
God,  the  fountain  of  spiritual  happiness.  Should  not  the 
people  of  God  then,  whenever  a  trial  meets  them  on 
their  path,  confess  in  it  the  hand  of  faithfulness,  and  with- 
out murmuring  at  the  allotment,  gird  up  their  whole 
strength  to  the  work  of  endurance  ?  Shall  not  they  who 
see  the  necessity  of  the  discipline  of  their  earthly  parents, 
much  more  confess  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  dis- 
cipline appointed  by  the  Father  of  spirits?  Should  they 
not  regard  his  allotments,  even  when  most  painful,  as 
evidences  of  a  Father's  heart  and  a  Father's  care? — as 
proof  that  he  is  training  them  as  sons  and  daughters  for 
honor  and  glory  in  his  eternal  kingdom  ? 

I  observe, 

3.  From  the  trial  of  Abraham,  the  people  of  God  may 
derive  encouragement  in  the  hour  of  trial  to  endure 
patiently  the  will  of  God. 

For  each  trial,  however  severe  or  protracted,  being 
appointed  by  faithful  love,  in  order  to  benefit  and  not 
destroy,  will  come  to  a  close :  and  when  God  appears  to 
bring  it  to  an  end,  then  to  meet  him  with  a  spirit  that  has 
held  on  to  faith  and  obedience  to  the  last,  will  bring  a 
harvest  of  delight  to  the  soul,  in  possessing  the  appro- 


IO2  The  Trial  of  Abraham, 


bation  of  God,  and  sharing-  with  him  in  the  gains  of  obe- 
dience and  the  joys  of  deliverance,  which  will  overbalance, 
tar,  all  the  pains  of  endurance. 

Though  his  trial  was  not  such  as  is  common  to  man, 
Abraham  had  to  endure  it  but  three  days :  and  the  faith, 
with  which  he  rested  on  God  in  those  days  of  darkness, 
satisfied  his  heart  more  at  the  time  than  the  pleasures  of 
sin  could  have  done  :  and  when  patience  had  completed 
its  work  on  the  mount  of  sacrifice,  what  blessed  results 
arose  to  his  soul  at  the  coming  of  God  !  There  was  the 
consciousness  of  having  done  the  will  of  God,  at  the 
greatest  earthly  sacrifice:  there  was  a  feast  of  joy  par- 
taken with  God  in  his  testimony  to  faithfulness  and  in  the 
sweet  experience  of  delivering  grace :  there  wras  the  sun- 
light of  hope  casting  its  happy  radiance  over  the  future  : 
that  made  the  very  mount  of  sacrifice  an  emblem  of  the 
heights  of  heavenly  blessedness.  Nor  are  the  spiritual 
results,  which  are  gained  by  patient  endurance,  momen- 
tary. They  are  treasured  up  in  the  ever  living  spirit ; 
deposited  among  its  memories,  stored  with  its  affections, 
commingled  with  its  joys  forever. 

Be  encouraged  then,  child  of  God,  whatever  trial  he 
appoints  thee,  to  endure  it,  with  firm  and  patient  submis- 
sion to  his  will.  If  it  seems  severe  ;  if  it  seems  protrac- 
ted ;  if  thy  heart  is  almost  ready  to  faint  within  thee  ; 
hold  on  in  faith  and  steady  submission.  The  path  he 
appoints  thee  may  seem  dreary.  There  may  be  moun- 
tains of  difficulty  to  ascend.  But  trust  in  the  Lord  who 
leads  thee.  Trust  him  for  his  wisdom.  Trust  him  for  his 
kindness  and  mercy.  Not  beyond  what  thou  art  able  to 
bear,  not  without  any  way  of  escape,  will  he  make  thy 
burthen.  Hold  on  with  patient  endurance.  The  hour 
of  deliverance  is  to  come.  On  the  mount  the  Lord  will 
appear.  And  at  his  appearing,  hope,  love,  joy,  shall  be 
shed  abroad  abundantly  in  thy  heart  as  the  results  of  thy 
patient  endurance. 

"  Ye  fearful  saints,  fresh  courage  take, 

The  clouds  you  so  much  dread 
Are  filled  with  mercy,  and  shall  break 
With  blessings  on  your  head." 


The  Trial  of  Abraham.  103 


"  Be  patient  therefore,  brethren,"  under  all  the  earthly 
trials  which  may  be  appointed  you,  "unto  the"  final 
"coming  of  the  Lord."  On  the  ways  of  this  life,  the  will 
of  God  made  manifest  in  his  precepts  or  his  providence, 
will  appoint  you  trials,  more  or  less  severe.  You  may 
pray  that  he  would  not  lead  you  into  them  ;  and  while 
they  are  upon  you,  that  he  would  deliver  you.  You  may 
use  all  lawful  and  suitable  means  to  avoid  their  occur- 
rence ;  to  shorten  their  continuance  ;  to  lighten  their 
burthen.  Still,  if  you  are  his  beloved  children  whom  he 
is  training  for  heaven,  you  cannot  avoid  them  utterly. 
He  will  appoint  them  for  discipline,  and  you  must  bear 
them  with  patience.  Think,  whenever  they  come  upon 
you,  of  the  faithful  .love  that  appoints  them,  and  of  the 
encouragements  to  endure.  "  Behold,"  in  the  examples 
of  those  who  have  lived  before  us,  "  we  count  them 
happy  which  endure."  Their  faith,  though  tried  as  gold 
in  the  fire,  is  a  treasure  far  more  precious  than  gold,  and, 
through  the  refining,  "  will  be  found  unto  praise  and 
honor  and  glory  at  the  appearing  of  Jesus  Christ." 

And  now,  children  of  the  apostasy,  who  have  not  yet 
obeyed  the  call  of  God,  and  put  yourselves  under  the 
care  and  discipline  of  his  grace,  hearken  to  me.  If  severe 
trials  are  thus  appointed  to  those  who  accept  the  call  of 
God  and  walk  in  his  ways ;  if  judgments  must  invade  the 
very  sanctuary  of  his.grace  for  the  correction  of  his  peo- 
ple ;  if  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Almighty,  whom  he 
has  adopted  forever  into  his  household,  cannot  be  saved 
without  scourging:  what  will  the  end  be  of  those  who 
obey  not  his  call  of  mercy  ;  who  refuse  to  take  shelter  in 
his  sanctuary ;  who  persist,  as  aliens  and  enemies,  in 
despising  and  trampling  on  all  the  orderings  of  his  au- 
thority ?  . 

Oh  !  there  is,  one  day,  a  burnt-offering  to  be  made 
greater  than  was  commanded  on  Moriah !  The  wicked 
who  refuse  to  return  to  God,  who  continue  to  despise  the 
orderings  of  his  righteous  will  and  to  oppose  his  obedient 
servants,  shall  all  be  assembled  in  his  presence.  Before 
the  great  multitude  of  his  saints,  who  have  made  their 


104  The  Trial  of  Abraham, 


peace  and  covenant  with  him  through  the  great  sin-offer- 
ing presented  on  Calvary — before  this  multitude  of  his 
saints,  will  he  show  himself  true  :  and,  as  for  ages  he  has 
forewarned  the  world,  will  he  institute  the  great  burnt- 
offering  that  is  to  honor  his  long  insulted  justice.  He 
will  whet  his  glittering  sword.  His  hand  will  take  hold 
on  judgment.  No  voice  of  mercy  will  on  that  day  arrest 
the  stroke.  His  sword  will  devour  the  flesh,  and  be  drunk 
with  the  blood  of  the  assembled  hosts.  A  fire  will  be 
kindled  in  his  anger,  which  shall  burn  to  the  lowest  hell. 
And  upon  these  flames,  which  are  never  to  be  quenched, 
shall  they  be  thrown,  and  the  smoke  of  their  torment 
shall  ascend  as  a  perpetual  burnt-offering  before  his  king- 
dom, to  exalt  his  justice  forever. 

Will  you  pursue  the  pleasures  of  sin  for  a  short  season, 
to  be  devoured  in  these  flames?  Will  you  not  choose 
rather  to  obey  the  will  of  God  and  suffer  affliction  with 
his  people  for  a  little,  that  you  may  partake  of  their  eter- 
nal triumphs  at  his  coming? 

Behold  he  has  set  up  his  standard  of  salvation  in  the 
midst  of  you.  He  is  now  calling  to  himself  a  people. 
That  call  is  resounding  in  your  ears.  Why  linger  ye? 
Gather  yourselves  together  now  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts, 
the  Saviour  of  Israel.  Fashion  yourselves  no  longer 
after  your  former  lusts.  Be  holy,  as  he  is  who  calleth 
you.  Put  yourselves  under  his  direction  and  care  ;  and  go 
iforward  with  his  people,  on  the  path  of  obedience  and 
trial,  to  their  triumphant  joy  in  his  heavenly  kingdom. 


UNION  TO  GOD  AND  HIS  PEOPLE. 


RUTH  I,  15:  16. 
BEHOLD  THY  SISTER-IN-LAW  is  GONE  BACK  UNTO  HER  PEOPLE  AND  UNTO  HER 

GODS  :  RETURN  THOU  AFTER  THY  SISTER-IN-LAW.  AND  RUTH  SAID,  INTREAT 
ME  NOT  TO  LEAVE  THEE,  OR  RETURN  FROM  FOLLOWING  AFTER  THEE:  FOR 
WHITHER  THOU  GOEST,  I  WILL  GO  ;  AND  WHERE  THOU  LODGEST  I  WILL 

LODGE  :  thy  people  shall  be  my  people,  and  thy  God  shall  be  my  God. 

THIS  resolve  of  Ruth's  was  fixed  :  fixed  in  an  iron 
will ;  a  will  not  to  be  bent  or  broken  from  its  purpose  ; 
yet  conducting  a  gentle  and  affectionate  heart  to  its 
chosen  fortunes  with  the  people  and  into  the  service  of 
Jehovah. 

This  resolution  of  hers  was  intended  to  put  away  from 
her  all  further  entreaty  or  plea  to  the  contrary  ;  and  was 
uttered  as  final :  "  intreat  me  not my  God." 

To  estimate  her  resolution  aright,  we  need  to  see  what 
thoughts  were  crowding  upon  her  heart  at  the  time  she 
uttered  it,  the  thoughts  that  came  rushing  to  her  from 
the  history  of  her  past  life.  Ten  years  before  this  period, 
Naomi,  with  whom  she  was  now  journeying,  had  come  to 
Moab,  having  migrated  thither  with  her  husband  and  two 
sons  from  the  land  of  Judah,  bringing  with  them  the 
knowledge  of  the  true  God.  Elimelech,  the  husband  of 
Naomi,  soon  died  :  yet  by  the  marriage  of  her  sons  with 
Orpah  and  Ruth,  two  of  the  daughters  of  Moab,  the 
widow  rejoiced  in  the  affectionate  hearts  that  were  joined 
to  her  family  circle.  Yet  this  happy  scene  was  soon 
broken  up  by  the  hand  of  death.  Mahlon  and  Chilian 
were  gathered  to  their  father,  Elimelech,  in  the  grave  : 
and  over  the  last  resting  place  of  the  father  and  sons 
the  widowed  mother  and  her  two  widowed  daughters-in- 
law  mingle  the  tears  of  bereavement  and  bitterness. 

15 


106  JJnion  to  God  and  His  People. 


In  this  state  of  bereavement,  Naomi  resolved  to  return 
to  the  home  of  her  youth  ;  when  Orpah  and  Ruth,  with 
truly  filial  affection,  resolved  to  accompany  her  and  share 
with  her  the  fortunes  of  life.  When  they  commenced 
their  journey,  Naomi,  out  of  regard  to  the  temporal  wel- 
fare of  her  daughters,  besought  them  to  go  back  and 
remain  with  their  kindred  and  friends :  and  kissed  them 
in  token  of  bestowing  her  blessing  and  love  on  them  at 
parting.  But  they  lifted  up  their  voices  and  wept ;  say- 
ing, surely  we  will  return  with  thee  unto  thy  people. 
Naomi  again  strenuously  besought  them  not  to  accom- 
pany her  in  their  destitute  and  unprotected  widowhood, 
but  to  return  to  their  acquaintances  in  Moab.  The 
thought  of  separation  grieved  them,  and  they  lifted  up 
their  voices  and  wept  again.  But  Orpah,  though  grieved, 
now  acceded  to  the  proposal  of  her  mother ;  and,  sealing 
her  friendship  at  parting  with  a  kiss,  went  back  unto  her 
idolatrous  countrymen.  Ruth  still  clave  unto  her  mother, 
refusing  to  return ;  and  they  proceeded  on  their  journey. 
But  Naomi,  as  even  pious  parents  are  prone  to  be,  was  so 
solicitous  to  ensure  what  appeared  to  be  the  temporal 
interest  of  Ruth  as  to  hazard  her  spiritual  welfare,  and 
again  urged  her  to  return  to  her  idolatrous  countrymen, 
beseeching  her  to  unite  herself  to  the  society  of  her 
now  absent  sister.  But  this  last  and  strong  appeal  to  the 
affectionate  heart  of  Ruth  was  not  sufficient  to  move  her 
from  her  resolution.  "  Intreat  me  not,"  says  she,  "  to 
leave  thee  or  to  return  from  following  after  thee,  for 
whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go  ;  and  where  thou  lodgest  I 
will  lodge  ;  thy  people  shall  be  my  people,  and  thy  God  shall 
be  my  God." 

There  was  much  of  filial  affection,  doubtless,  in  this 
strong  unyielding  resolution  of  Ruth  :  but  may  we  not 
believe  there  was  also  the  deep  desire  of  spiritual  improve- 
ment? She  resolved  to  give  up  her  portion  in  the  land  of 
idols  and  find  it  in  the  land  of  God.  I  will  give  up  the 
vain  gods  of  my  youth  and  the  society  of  my  idolatrous 
countrymen,  even  that  of  my  sister;  and  go  and  unite 
myself  to  God  and  his  people,  asking  a  reception  into  the 


Union  to  God  and  His  People.  io/ 


privilege  of  worshipping1  and  serving  him  in  the  congre- 
gation of  his  people,  even  though  it  be  as  a  proselyte  of 
the  gate  in  the  outer  court  of  the  Gentiles. 

This  noble  resolution  of  Ruth  to  unite  herself  in  resis- 
tance to  all  entreaties  and  pleas  to  the  contrary  to  the 
people  and  to  the  God  of  Israel,  and  cast  in  her  lot  im- 
movably with  theirs,  is  worthy  of  the  imitation  of  all  to 
whom,  by  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  presence  of  his  Church,  opportunity  is  given  to  form 
the  union.  For  in  covenanting  to  take  the  Lord  as  our 
God,  and  his  people  as  our  spiritual  associates,  as  they  are 
offered  to  our  acceptance,  we  enter  into  a  union  which 
ensures  our  spiritual  and  perpetual  well-being,  while 
withdrawal  from  such  union  necessarily  subjects  our  whole 
being  to  the  endurance  of  evil.  Our  subject  will  be  the 
grounds  which  justify  such  a  firm  resolve,  as  they  are  set 
forth  in  the  blessings  of  spiritual  fellowship  with  God  and 
his  people,  and  the  evils  necessarily  consequent  on  with- 
drawal from  that  fellowship. 

i.  Holy  fellowship  with  God  and  his  people  is  a  source 
of  the  purest  friendship :  that  of  God  and  his  saints.  In 
the  weakness  that  attaches  to  us  as  finite  beings  and  the 
dangers  that  surround  us  from  temptation  and  sin,  what 
a  value  is  there  in  pure  friendship  !  In  this  selfish  world 
the  possession  of  a  single  friend  who  is  pure  in  his  love, 
who  is  devoted  to  our  spiritual  welfare,  and  who  will 
adhere  to  us  in  all  the  changes  of  our  condition,  is  a 
greater  blessing  than  all  earthly  treasures  in  comparison. 
What  an  unspeakable  blessing  then  is  it,  to  enjoy  the 
friendship  of  God  and  his  saints  !  Yet  if  we  unite  our- 
selves to  the  people  of  God,  they  are  our  friends.  They 
pledge  themselves  to  be  our  friends  in  all  circumstances 
of  our  condition.  We  are  sure,  as  one  with  them  in  the 
bonds  of  Christ,  of  receiving  their  sympathy  in  our  trials, 
the  aid  of  their  counsels  and  prayers  in  our  wants  and 
dangers,  and  their  countenance  and  cooperation  in  our 
labors  of  benevolence.  If  we  unite  ourselves  to  God, 
this  glorious  Being  is  our  Friend  and  Father.  He  pledges 
to  us  in  sacred  covenant  his  holy  and  unchangeable  friend- 


io8  Union  to  God  and  His  People. 


ship.  His  eye  of  omniscience  is  ever  on  us  for  good,  his 
ear  is  open  to  our  cries,  his  hand  of  power  is  around  us 
for  our  protection,  his  wisdom  instructs  and  guides  us, 
his  mercy  blots  out  our  iniquities  in  free  forgiveness,  his 
grace  sanctifies  and  saves  our  souls.  His  heart  of  fatherly 
love  is  intent  on  our  welfare,  his  Son  is  our  advocate  and 
head,  his  Holy  Spirit  is  our  gracious  indwelling  Com- 
forter, the  witness  and  seal  of  his  love. 

Is  not  the  very  possession  of  such  a  sympathizing  friend- 
ship, flowing  to  us  from  the  heart  of  God,  and  the  hearts  of 
his  people,  a  rich  treasure  of  joy  ?  The  very  feeling  that 
God,  and  that,  as  far  as  they  know  us,  his  spiritual  house- 
hold, are  not  only  at  peace  with  us,  but  tenderly  sympa- 
thize \vith  us  in  our  hopes  and  fears,  our  joys  and  sorrows, 
—throws  a  sweet  solace  over  the  trials  of  the  present  state, 
sheds  full  joy  into  the  cup  of  present  blessings,  and  is 
one  of  the  elements  of  the  cloudless  and  overflowing 
pleasures  of  heaven. 

2.  Holy  fellowship  with  God  and  his  people  leads  to  the 
most  exalted  employments  of  benevolence.  What  a  rich  field 
of  benevolent  employment  is  set  before  us  in  fellowship 
with  God  and  his  people.  We  are  in  a  world  that  God 
has  made,  filled  with  immortal  beings,  over  whom  he  has 
exercised  a  kind  providence  and  righteous  government, 
who  yet  have  wandered  from  his  worship  and  service 
into  the  ruinous  blindness  and  perverseness  of  sin.  In 
such  a  world  God  is  redeeming  a  people  to  himself  by 
his  Son  and  Spirit,  diffusing  abroad  the  light  of  spiritual 
knowledge,  the  healing  influence  of  sanctifying  power. 
In  maintaining  fellowship  with  God  and  his  people,  there- 
fore, it  is  our  exalted  and  worthy  employment  to  promote 
this  work  of  God  that  redounds  to  his  glory  and  human 
salvation.  His  wisdom  has  contrived  and  set  before  us 
the  means  on  which  our  own  faculties  may  be  wisely  em- 
ployed, his  grace  has  set  before  us  the  field  into  which 
we  may  enter  and  where  we  may  reap  a  glorious  harvest 
of  good  to  his  praise.  And  how  is  the  joy  of  this  benevo- 
lent employment  heightened  by  conscious  unity  with 
God  and  his  people.  If  by  any  means  I  am  an  instrument 


Union  to  God  and  His  People.  109 


of  converting  a  sinner  from  the  error  of  his  ways  or  of 
strengthening-  a  Christian  brother  in  the  way  of  the  Lord, 
I  have  done  it  not  alone,  but  as  one  with  God  and  his 
people:  and  I  know,  not  only  that  joy  is  imparted  to  the 
individual  but  that  the  event  will  cause  benevolent  joy  to 
the  holy  brethren  who  hear  of  it,  that  it  gives  joy  to  the 
heart  of  the  Eternal  Father,  and  that  God,  from  whom  all 
grace  proceeds,  will  be  honored  in  consequence  with  an 
increasing  tribute  of  praise.  In  this  field  of  benevolent 
employment  I  appropriate  to  myself  too  the  joy  of  what 
God  and  his  people  clo  in  the  same  work.  The  object  is 
one:  and  when  I  meditate  on  God  and  see  the  wisdom 
and  power  and  goodness  and  righteousness  he  exercised 
in  the  original  creation,  and  the  goodness  and  super- 
abounding  grace  he  manifests  in  the  new  creation  by 
Jesus  Christ,  what  joy  his  infinite  heart  takes  in  his  works 
and  what  joys  flow  from  them  to  the  hearts  of  his  holy 
and  redeemed  Creatures,  I  am  supremely  blessed  in  his 
blessedness,  I  adore  him  for  his  wisdom  and  goodness,  I 
praise  him  for  the  help  and  the  blessings  imparted  from 
his  throne  to  his  dependent  creatures.  So,  too,  in -this 
blessed  field  of  benevolence,  which  is  one  alike  in  all  pla- 
ces and  in  all  ages,  when  I  contemplate  what  any  of  his 
servants  have  done  in  past  ages,  or  hear  of  what  they  are 
now  doing  in  distant  places,  or  see  what  the}7  are  doing 
around  me,  to  promote  in  the  earth  the  glorious  cause  of 
God,  I  rejoice  in  their  joy  and  success  and  in  the  healing 
light  of  their  example;  and,  for  it  all,  I  thank  the  God  of 
grace. 

This  deep,  ever  flowing  and  ever  increasing  source  of 
joy,  is  opened  to  us  in  that  cause  of  benevolence  for  which 
God  has  associated  with  himself  a  peculiar  people,  zeal- 
ous of  good  works.  In  the  results  that  flow  from  this 
benevolent  union,  our  hearts  may  at  times  overflow  with 
joy,  even  here  in  this  world,  while  in  the  field  of  labor 
and  trial,  while  far  from  our  Father's  house,  while  imme- 
diately surrounded  but  by  few  of  his  people,  and  opposed 
by  the  armies  of  the  aliens.  What  then  shall  be  the  joy 
of  the  benevolent  laborers,  when  they  shall  have  all  come 


1 1 0  Union  to  God  and  His  People. 


in  from  their  fields  of  toil  to  their  Father's  house  in 
heaven,  bringing  their  sheaves  with  them  from  the  four 
winds,  shouting  the  harvest  home ! 

3.  Holy  fellowship  with  God  and  his  people  leads  to 
our  own  spiritual  improvement.  It  is  in  union  to  the 
Church  of  Christ  only  that  we  can  expect  to  receive 
spiritual  edification,  to  persevere  and  grow  in  grace,  and 
increase  in  the  knowledge  of  Christ.  For  Christ  has 
introduced  into  this  body,  ordinances  and  means  of  grace 
designed  for  their  use  and  edification.  He  has  appointed 
his  holy  sabbath  as  a  day  for  their  assembling,  a  day 
hallowed  to  sacred  rest  and  holy  contemplation ;  he  has 
given  them  his  word  abounding  in  the  instructions  of  his 
own  wisdom  and  love  ;  he  has  given  them  the  privilege  of 
uniting  their  hearts  together  at  the  throne  of  all  grace  in 
prayer  and  praise  ;  he  has  instituted  for  them  the  public 
ministry  of  his  word  by  teachers  and  pastors ;  he  has 
appointed  their  mutual  watchfulness  or  united  censure  for 
wholesome  discipline ;  he  has  appointed  the  ordinance  of 
his  supper  as'  a  memorial  of  his  death  and  sufferings,  at 
which  they  may,  in  humble,  thankful  meditation,  feast 
together  upon  his  love.  These  means,  his  wisdom  and 
love  have  introduced  into  his  church  for  the  perfecting  of 
the  saints,  for  the  edifying  of  his  body,  till  they  all  come 
in  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son 
of  God,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of 
Christ. 

Nor  shall  we  fail  to  persevere  and  grow  in  the  spiritual 
graces  of  faith  and  charity,  if,  in  spiritual  union  to  God 
and  his  people,  we  faithfully  apply  those  means  which  his 
grace  appoints  and  his  Spirit  blesses  to  edification  in  holi- 
ness. We  shall  go  forward  to  fresh  victories  over  sin  and 
temptation.  We  shall  gather  fresh  strength  to  run  in  the 
ways  of  God.  Our  love  shall  abound  yet  more  and  more, 
and  increase  in  wisdom  and  prudence  and  understanding. 

And  how  rich  a  source  of  joy  is  it  to  be  transformed 
into  the  glorious  image  of  the  Lord  from  glory  to  glory  : 
to  grow  up  to  him  in  all  things  who  is  the  Head  of  all 
wisdom  and  goodness  and  in  whom  all  fullness  dwells  : 


I'll  ion  to  God  and  His  People.  1 1 1 


who  is  the  pattern  of  all  excellence  and  the  admiration 
and  joy  of  all  heaven  ! 

These  spiritual  attainments  and  ornaments  will  be  all 
our  own:  the  very  habits  of  our  souls:  inwrapped  with 
the  very  faculties  of  our  natures ;  which,  unlike  external 
possessions,  no  enemy  can  ever  wrest  from  us  ;  and  which 
shall  be  like  wells  of  water  within  us  springing  up  unto 
everlasting  life  and  joy,  increasing  the  tide  of  our  blessed- 
ness here  and  forevermore. 

4.  Holy  fellowship  with  God  and  his  people  conducts 
us  to  an  eternal  feast  of  joy  in  the  kingdom  of  God  in  heaven. 
There  shall  we  be  presented  faultless  in  the  presence  of 
God  and  his  saints  at  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  :  purified  from  sin  and  all  its  evil  inclinations  ; 
adorned  with  perfect  rectitude  and  love.  There  in  the 
new  Jerusalem  above,  shall  we  be  gathered  to  the  innu- 
merable company  of  angels,  the  general  assembly  of  the 
Church,  the  Mediator  of  the  new  covenant,  'and  God  the 
Judge  and  Father  of  all,  and  taste  the  sweets  of  their 
combined  friendship  and  mingle  in  their  exalted  em- 
ployments of  benevolence,  without  a  trial  or  enemy  to 
disturb  us  more,  to  all  eternity.  There  all  the  scattered 
rills  of  joy  that  pass  to  refresh  us  here  below,  shall  meet 
and  commingle  into  one  unbounded  ocean  of  blessedness. 
There  shall  the  heart  of  Christ  overflow  with  joy  in  reap- 
ing the  rich  harvest  of  his  former  sufferings,  and  all 
heaven  exult  in  his  joy  and  echo  with  his  praise.  There 
shall  the  Eternal  Father  rejoice  with  all  his  holy  ones  in 
having  fully  answered  the  prayer  which  his  Son  offered  to 
him  in  the  days  of  his  humiliation.  '  Father,  I  pray  for 
those  that  believe  in  me,  that  they  all  may  be  one,  asthou, 
Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in  thee  :  that  they  all  may  be  one 
in  us.'  And  before  his  awful  throne  shall  the  nations  of 
the  saved  and  glorified  bow  with  joyful  adoration  and 
praise.  The  Church  of  God — the  bride  of  the  Lamb — is 
there  united  in  the  closest  bonds  of  love  to  her  Lord  and 
Saviour,  and  heaven  becomes  as  it  were  a  marriage  sup- 
per of  pure  uninterrupted  joy. 

O  !  what  an  exalted  feast  will   this  be  to  all  the  pure 


H2  Union  to  God  and  His  People. 


minds  of  the  sanctified  in  heaven !  And  should  it  not  be 
enough  to  bind  our  hearts  with  steadfast  resolution  to  God 
and  his  people  here  in  this  world  of  labor  and  trial  and 
temptation  and  sin?  The  thought  and  hope  of  it  may 
well  yield  us  many  a  season  of  sustaining  and  refreshing 
joy,  while  involved  in  the  conflicts  of  faith  and  bearing 
the  heat  and  burden  of  our  day  of  toil.  It  may  well  sus- 
tain us  with  buoyant  hope  in  that  hour  when,  called  from 
this  scene  of  trial,  we  must  conflict  with  death,  that  last 
enemy  of  the  saints,  and  lay  down  these  bodies  amid 
pangs  and  groans  in  the  darkness  of  the  corrupting  grave. 
And  when  beyond  that  dark  valley  we  lift  up  our  eyes 
upon  the  light  and  glory  of  our  Father's  house  in  heaven, 
our  admission  into  this  feast  of  love  shall  fill  our  immortal 
spirits  with  triumphant  and  unending  joy. 

But  I  mentioned  as  grounds  for  cleaving  with  unshaken 
purpose   to  the   communion  of  God   and  his  people,  not 
only  the  blessing  to  be  derived  from  such  fellowship,  but 
the  evil   we   necessarily  incur  if  we  turn  away  from  that 
fellowship  to  the  idolatry  of  the  world.     For  if  we  turn 
away  from   God  and   his  people,  we  do  not  merely  relin- 
quish all  hold  on  the  sources  of  good  that  are  offered  us 
in  their  fellowship  :  though  this  loss  is  unspeakably  great, 
—utterly    wasting    to    the  immortal   spirit,    and    forever 
irreparable.     We   necessarily   do   more.     We  still    exist. 
The  burning  energies  of  life  are  within  us.     And   if  we 
turn  away  from  this  portion,  we  shall  cleave   to  another. 
The  world   will  absorb   us.     Its  pleasures  shall  we  seek. 
Its  lusts  shall  we  fulfill.     Estranged  from  God  through  the 
blindness  of  our  hearts,  and  aliens  from  his   Israel,  we 
shall   pursue   our   way  of  selfishness  through  the    world 
alone.     Yet  not  wholly   alone.     We  shall  be   associated 
with  that  portion  of  God's  universal  kingdom,  who  have 
gone  off  from  him  in   guilty  revolt ;  who,  having  broken 
from  the  bands  of  his  wholesome  authority  and  trampled 
on   his  benevolent  laws,  and   expecting  to  reap  nothing 
from  him   but  indignation  and  wrath,  hate  him,  and  hate 
the  people  whom  he  saves ;  who  are  truly  hateful  them- 
selves, and  who  in  their  selfish  malice  hate  one  another. 


Union  to  God  and  His  People.  \  13 

What  evils  face  us  if  we  turn  away  from  God  and  his 
people,  and  associate  ourselves,  under  Satan  the  prince  of 
darkness  and  the  god  of  this  world,  with  the  multitude 
of  his  followers! 

What  is  their  friendship  ?  It  is  not  solicitous  for  our 
real  welfare.  It  would  bind  us  only  to  their  selfish,  sin- 
ful, malicious  purposes.  It  seeks  our  subservience  to  sin, 
and  in  that  very  way  plots  and  designs  our  ruin. 

What  is  their  employment?  It  is  self-seeking,  that  is 
cursed  in  the  doing,  that  is  cursed  in  witnessing  the  guilty 
subservience  of  others,  that  breaks  out  in  a  war  of  mutual 
wrath  and  malice  when  subservience  is  refused,  or  that 
combines  only  in  a  greater  and  more  absorbing  passion  of 
malice  to  war  against  God  and  his  saints. 

What  is  their  influence  ?  The  heart  is  hardened  yet 
more  and  more.  The  feelings  are  combining  more  and 
more  into  one  blaze  of  malice.  The  marks  of  reproba- 
tion thicken  upon  the  wandering  outcast.  He  is  fitted  for 
wrath. 

And  what  is  the  result?  He  and  the  whole  body  to 
whom  he  has  become  leagued  are  summoned  before  God 
the  Judge ;  and  there,  as  those  who  have  made  shipwreck 
of  their  souls,  are  they  cast  off  from  him  and  his  people, 
as  disturbers  of  the  peace,  a  useless  and  mighty  wreck, 
into  the  depths  of  hell.  And  there  the  fires  of  malice  will 
burn  with  anguish,  and  burn,  and  burn, — to  eternity. 

O !  is  it  not  a  weighty  reason  to  unite  ourselves  to  God 
and  his  people,  that  we  cannot  give  up  the  blessedness  of 
this  fellowship,  except  on  the  dreadful  alternative  of 
taking  up  our  final  portion  with  the  wicked  ?  Shall  we 
give  up  our  portion  in  heaven  and  its  feast  of  love,  and 
take  it  in  hell  and  its  fires  of  malice  ? 

From  our  subject  I  remark, 

i.  They  who  are  already  united  to  the  Lord  and  his 
people,  should  cleave  to  this  privilege  as  their  highest 
honor  and  joy. 

For  this  fellowship  involves  in  it  all  their  happiness, 
their  spiritual  improvement  and  hopes  for  eternity,  and 
apart  from  it  there  is  no  portion  in  the  kingdom  of  God, 

16 


1 14  Union  to  God  and  His  People. 


but  utter  perdition.  And  who,  in  such  a  wide  alternative, 
should  hesitate  on  which  side  to  take  his  portion  ? 

Are  there  trials  attendant  on  your  duties  ?  But,  by 
neglecting  your  duties,  you  will  not  fail  to  encounter 
trials  and  severer  trials  still :  and  where  can  you  find 
solace  and  support  under  trials  like  that  which  is  offered 
you  in  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Spirit  ? 

Are  there  aliens  from  God  and  his  Israel  around  you, 
that  would  oppose  you  and  put  you  to  shame  ?  Fly  then 
to  the  friendship  of  God  and  his  holy  ones,  which  is  one 
day  to  crown  you  with  glory  and  cover  all  his  enemies 
with  shame,  nor  dare,  for  the  sake  of  receiving  present 
honor  from  man,  to  be  confounded  in  the  coming  day 
of  Christ. 

Are  there  trials  from  the  want  of  charity  in  the  people 
of  God  ?  Alas  !  that  children  of  the  same  father,  in  the 
world  of  their  trials  and  labors,  should  ever  fall  out  by 
the  way  or  withdraw  the  heart  from  sympathy  and  love  ! 
Yet  imperfect  as  Christian  fellowship  is  in  this  world,  it  is 
a  purer  and  sweeter  bond  than  is  known  to  the  wcrld,  and 
soon  it  will  be  perfected  in  heaven,  and  you  and  your 
fellow  Christians  will  have  but  one  heart  of  warm  and 
undying  charity  in  the  house  of  your  Father  on  high. 

Are  there  chastenings  from  the  hand  of  the  Lord  ?  But 
these  are  wholesome  remedies  which  his  friendship  ad- 
ministers for  our  spiritual  improvement,  to  work  in  us  the 
peaceable  fruits  of  righteousness.  We  are  now  chastened, 
that  we  may  not  be  condemned  with  the  world.  Why 
then  shall  we  not  be  subject  to  the  Father  of  Spirits  and 
live? 

Cleave  then,  brethren,  partakers  of  the  heavenly  call- 
ing, to  communion  with  God  and  his  saints.  Walk 
worthy  of  him  as  his  dear  children,  and  of  your  high 
vocation :  inviting,  by  your  faith  and  prayers  and  Chris- 
tian love,  the  presence  of  the  communing  Spirit.  For  ye 
are  called  in  one  hope  of  your  calling  :  and  there  is  one 
Spirit,  one  Lord,  one  God  and  Father  of  all. 

2.  The  friends  of  God  should  ardently  seek  that  con- 
verts may  be  gathered  from  the  world  and  added  to  the 
Lord  and  his  church. 


Union  to  God  and  His  People.  1 1  $ 


For  the  world  is  going  forward  in  alienation  from  God 
and  his  Israel,  hardening  in  guilt  and  ripening  for  endless 
ruin.  And  the  joyful  fellowship  in  Christ  to  which 
believers  cleave  as  their  hope  and  joy,  presents  to  these 
children  of  sin  and  error  the  opportunity  of  a  complete 
and  joyful  redemption. 

How  then  should  the  Spirit  of  their  Lord — who  was 
willing  to  leave  his  throne  and  joy,  and  to  sacrifice  him- 
self on  the  cross  for  the  redemption  of  the  guilty  and 
lost — how  should  the  Spirit  of  their  Lord  shine  forth  in 
their  example  before  the  world,  and  be  breathed  forth  in 
their  intercourse,  to  win  souls  to  salvation ! 

Let  them  go  to  the  wandering  sinner  in  a  spirit  of  love 
that  longs  for  him  in  the  fellowship  of  the  Spirit  and  in 
the  mercies  of  Christ,  and  spread  before  him  the  invita- 
tion of  Christ  that  he  come  to  the  free  and  rich  feast  of 
the  Gospel,  and  urge  on  him  their  own  invitation  ;  saying, 
Come  thou  with  us  and  we  will  do  thee  good  ;  for  the 
Lord  hath  spoken  good  concerning  Israel. 

Above  all,  let  them  seek  in  earnest  humble  prayer  for 
the  presence  of  God  and  the  outpouring  of  his  Holy 
Spirit.  For  it  is  when  the  Spirit  is  present  with  his  peo- 
ple, and  they  go  forth  in  the  power  of  his  presence  and 
love  to  seek  the  lost,  that  the  Spirit  meets  the  lost  also  ; 
convincing  them  of  the  righteous  claims  of  Christ,  of 
their  sin,  and  a  coming  judgment;  and  by  his  subduing 
grace  turns  their  feet  into  the  ways  of  God  and  towards 
the  gates  of  his  Zion.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  :  "  Fear  not, 
O  Jacob,  my  servant,  and  thou,  Jeshurun,  whom  I  have 
chosen.  For  I  will  pour  water  upon  him  that  is  thirsty 
and  floods  upon  the  dry  ground.  I  will  pour  my  Spirit 
upon  thy  seed  and  my  blessing  upon  thine  offspring.  And 
they  shall  spring  up  as  among  the  grass,  as  willows  by  the 
water  courses.  One  shall  say,  I  am  the  Lord's  ;  and  an- 
other shall  call  himself  by  the  name  of  Jacob ;  and  an- 
other shall  subscribe  with  his  hand  unto  the  Lord  and 
surname  himself  by  the  name  of  Israel." 

Thus  shall  converts  be  gathered  from  the  world  :  and 
Zion  rejoice  in  the  multitudes  who  flock  to  her  gates  of 
salvation. 


1 1 6  ( 'nioji  to  God  and  His  People. 


And  if  there  is  a  place  in  the  Church  where  this  bless- 
ing is  to  be  desired,  or  to  be  prized,  more  than  in  any 
other,  that  place  is  here,  and  in  similar  institutions ; 
which  are  the  hope  of  the  Church,  the  nurseries  of  her 
future  teachers,  pastors,  missionaries,  guides,  and  her 
ablest  supporters  and  defenders. 

3.  The  penitent  and  returning  sinner  should  seek  to  be 
united  to  God  and  his  people  in  the  bonds  of  spiritual 
fellowship. 

He  is  a  child  of  sin  and  sorrow.  He  is  in  a  world  that 
is  short  and  fleeting.  He  stands  on  the  verge  of  an  eternal 
state.  He  has  loved  worldly  good  as  his  idol.  He  has 
Avandered  in  pursuit  of  it  with  restless  agitations,  and 
found  his  hopes  ever  ending  in  disappointment.  There 
has  been  a  void  in  his  soul  that  has  ached  for  some  higher 
and  more  exalted  objects.  There  has  been  a  sting  of  guilt, 
wounding  him  for  bis  disobedience  and  disregard  of  his 
Maker,  even  in  the  brightest  scenes  of  his  idolatrous  en- 
joyments. It  is  in  such  a  condition  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
meets  him  and  opens  his  eyes  to  look  on  himself  and  on 
God,  on  this  world  and  eternity,  in  the  sober  light  of 
truth.  He  sees  the  folly  of  his  ways  and  the  ruin  to 
which  they  lead.  The  world  sinks  in  his  esteem.  It  is 
as  a  barren  waste  to  his  heart,  and  its  idolized  enjoyments 
are  seen  as  the  illusions  of  sin,  that  lead  on  to  death.  He 
now  looks  to  God,  and  the  reasonable  service  he  requires 
of  his  creatures ;  and  his  heart  begins  to  feel  the  risings 
of  desire  and  the  kindlings  of  a  new  purpose  to  take  the 
Lord  as  his  God,  submitting  all  to  his  disposal  and  enga- 
ging all  in  his  service.  The  Spirit  of  God  thus  brings  him 
by  a  new  birth  into  spiritual  life.  He  now  begins  the  life 
of  faith  and  charity.  But  shall  he  pursue  his  way  alone  ? 
Shall  he  go  forward  to  eternity  as  a  solitary  servant  ?  No. 
God  in  his  grace  has  provided  better  things  for  his  chosen. 
He  gathers  them  into  one  body,  in  fellowship  with  his  Son 
and  with  one  another  ;  that  the  whole  body,  united  to 
their  Head  and  fitly  joined  together,  may  make  increase, 
unto  the  edifying  of  itself  in  love.  Hither  then  is  it  the 
privilege  of  the  convert  to  turn,  and  seek  in  communion 


(r n  ion  to  Cod  and  His  People.  117 


with  God  and  fellowship  with  the  saints  the  sympathy, 
employment,  instruction  in  righteousness,  and  eternal  rest, 
which  he  needs.  This  is  a  privilege  which  the  new  born 
soul  has  sought  and  prized  in  every  age  ;  and  for  which 
many  a  one  has  risked  all  his  earthly  happiness.  Like 
Ruth,  the  child  of  idolatry  who  resolved  to  go  and  unite 
herself  to  the  people  of  God  in  their  worship  and  fellow- 
ship, they  have  resolved  to  find  all  their  happiness  in  this 
fellowship. 

People  of  the  living  God  ! 

I  have  sought  the  world  around, 
Paths  of  sin  and  sorrow  trod, 

Peace  and  comfort  nowhere  found. 
Now  to  you  my  spirit  turns, 

Turns,  a  fugitive  unblest ; 
Brethren  !  where  your  altar  burns, 

Oh,  receive  me  into  rest ! 

Lonely,  1  no  longer  roam, 

Like  the  cloud,  the  wind,  the  wave  ; 
Where  you  dwell  shall  be  my  home, 

Where  you  die  shall  be  my  grave  ; 
Mine  the  God  whom  you  adore — 

Your  Redeemer  shall  be  mine  ; 
Earth  can  fill  my  soul  no  more, 

Every  idol  I  resign. 

To  those  who,  this  day,  seek  admission  into  public  fel- 
lowship with  Christ  and  this  branch  of  his  Church,  I 
would  now  say  in  their  behalf,  that  we  gladly  welcome 
you  into  fellowship  with  us  in  our  joys  and  labors ;  and 
hope  that  you  will  find  in  your  union  to  the  people  of 
God  a  privilege  that  you  will  not  cease  to  prize  and 
cherish  till  it  be  consummated  in  glory. 

Come  in,  thou  blessed  of  the  Lord, 

Oh  come  in  Jesus'  precious  name  ; 
We  welcome  thee  with  one  accord, 

And  trust  the  Saviour  does  the  same. 

Those  joys  which  earth  cannot  afford, 

We'll  seek  in  fellowship  to  prove  ; 
Joined  in  one  spirit  to  the  Lord, 

Together  bound  by  mutual  love. 


Ii8  Union  to  God  and  His  People. 

I  will  only  add  respecting  the  future,  the  exhortation 
that  you  cleave  with  full  purpose  of  heart  to  the  Lord  ; 
that  from  this  hour  you  go  forward  in  the  duties  of  reli- 
gion in  the  strength  of  Christ.  Let  your  future  College 
life  be  spent  for  God,  your  whole  life  on  earth  and  your 
life  in  eternity.  Be  sure  that  while  you  live  on  earth,  you 
live,  and  when  you  die,  you  die,  in  a  state  of  true  charity 
and  fellowship  with  God  and  his  people.  And  then,  where- 
ever  and  whenever  your  graves  shall  be  prepared,  they 
will  be  hallowed  by  the  Saviour,  and  your  name  and  me- 
morial be  on  high.  And,  at  the  resurrection  of  the  just 
and  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  we  shall  hope 
to  meet  you  at  that  eternal  feast  of  charity  where  conflict 
and  toil  and  separation  shall  be  known  no  more  forever. 


RAISING   FROM   THE  DEAD    THE    WIDOW'S  SON 

AT  NAIN. 


LUKE  VII:  11—17. 

THE  Evangelist  Luke  begins  his  narrative  of  the  event 
by  giving  us  the  particular  date  of  it  in  the  ministry  of 
Christ,  with  these  words:  "  And  it  came  to  pass  the  day 
after,  that  he  went  into  a  city  called  Nain."  If  we  look 
back  to  the  day  referred  to  in  this  date,  we  shall  be  as- 
sisted to  fix  on  some  of  the  circumstances  of  this  journey. 
The  day  before,  it  seems  Jesus  had  come  down  from  that 
mount  where  he  had  spent  the  whole  previous  night  in 
prayer  to  God  ;  on  which,  after  sending  for  his  disciples 
and  calling  them  to  his  place  of  retirement,  he  chose  the 
twelve  to  be  the  constant  attendants  of  his  ministry,  that 
they  might  hear  his  instructions  and  be  eye-witnesses  of 
his  miraculous  works  :  from  which  he  descended  awhile 
to  the  plain  to  heal  of  their  diseases  multitudes  gathered 
from  all  Judea  and  Jerusalem  and  from  the  seacoast  of 
Tyre  and  Sidon :  and  to  ivhich,  on  seeing  the  great  mul- 
titudes that  were  assembled,  he  returned,  that  he  might 
give  his  instructions  from  an  elevated  stand  to  the  vast 
assembly  ;  on  which  occasion  he  delivered  that  discourse 
which  is  so  fully  recorded  by  Matthew,  and  which  has  so 
generally  obtained  the  name  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
On  this  day  of  his  descent  from  the  mount  he  entered  the 
city  of  Capernaum,  the  place  then  of  his  residence  in 
Galilee  :  and  there  an  application  was  made  to  him  the 
same  day  by  a  deputation  of  elders  from  some  neighbor- 
ing synagogue,  that  he  would  heal  the  servant  of  a  Ro- 
man centurion,  who,  it  appears,  was  a  devout  proselyte 
greatly  beloved  by  the  Jews  for  his  piety  and  for  his  lib- 


I2O     Raising  from  the  Dead  the  Widow  s  Son  at  Nain. 


erality  in  building  them  a  synagogue.  The  day  of  this 
healing  of  the  centurion's  servant  is  the  date  to  which 
Luke  immediately  refers.  It  was  the  day  after, — and  con- 
sequently the  day  after  the  one  on  which  he  descended 
from  the  mount  of  instruction — that  Jesus  undertook  this 
journey  to  Nain.  We  are  to  place  the  journey  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second  year  of  his  ministry,  soon  after 
his  return  to  Galilee  from  the  Passover,  during  the  spring 
or  early  summer. 

He  was  not  alone  on  the  journey.  A  numerous  throng 
attended  him  on  the  way.  "  And  many  of  his  disciples 
went  with  him  and  much  people."  The  twelve,  who, 
doubtless,  attended  Jesus  on  this  first  tour  after  their  ap- 
pointment, are  not  distinguished  in  this  account  from  the 
"  many  disciples  "  who  are  grouped  together  as  a  class 
distinct  from  the  "  much  people."  The  latter  are  rem- 
nants probably  of  "the  great  multitudes  of  people,"  who 
the  day  before  were  assembled  at  the  mount,  from  so 
many  parts  of  the  country,  to  bring  their  sick  to  be 
healed,  or  to  see  and  hear  Jesus;  who,  as  Matthew  testi- 
fies, (iv.  25.)  '  had  come  from  Galilee,  from  Decapolis,  and 
from  Jerusalem,  and  from  Judea,  and  from  beyond  Jor- 
dan ;'  who,  after  hearing  his  instructive  discourse,  and 
rejoicing  in  being  healed  or  in  witnessing  the  healing  of 
others,  were  desirous  still  longer  to  accompany  him,  that 
they  might  hear  more  of  his  instructions  and  witness  still 
more  of  his  wonderful  works. 

The  city  of  Nain,  towards  which  Jesus  with  this  throng 
of  attendants  now  journeyed,  lay  in  that  part  of  Galilee 
which  was  apportioned  to  Issachar,  when  Canaan  was 
originally  divided  among  the  tribes  of  Israel ;  and  in  a 
direction  southwesterly  from  Capernaum,  at  a  distance  of 
more  than  fifteen  miles.  Between  the  two  cities,  but  on 
the  immediate  borders  of  Nain,  to  the  north,  stood  Mount 
Tabor ;  rising  in  one  solitary  cone  to  an  elevation  of 
nearly  three  thousand  feet,  with  a  flat  area  of  a  mile  in 
circumference  at  its  top,  celebrated  as  a  fortress  of  de- 
fense, in  war  and  an  altar  of  devotion  in  peace,  and  after- 
wards made  the  scene,  as  the  current  tradition  of  the 


Raising  from  the  Dead  the  Widow  s  Son  at  Nain.      121 


Church  has  reported,  of  the  transfiguration.  Between 
this  mountain  and  the  city  Nain,  flowed  the  head  waters 
of  the  brook  Kishon,  which,  running  west  across  the 
plain  of  Esdraelon  to  the  foot  of  Carmel,  glided  along  the 
northern  base  of  that  whole  mountain  range  to  its  termi- 
nation in  the  waters  of  the  Mediterranean. 

As  Jesus  goes  forward  to  execute  his  purpose  of  mercy, 
instructing  on  the  way  the  multitude  that  accompany 
him,  this  mount  of  Tabor  rests,  in  elevated  grandeur, 
before  them  ;  concealing,  behind  its  mass  of  soil  and  ver- 
dure, the  city  whither  they  were  tending.  Lifting  up  its 
lofty  peak  far  into  the  blue  heaven,  it  might  well  assist 
the  Master  to  elevate  the  thoughts  of  the  whole  company 
to  those  heights  above,  where  he  had  glory  with  the 
Father  before  the  world  was  ;  whither,  after  he  had  closed 
his  humiliating  mission  on  earth,  he  would  ascend  again  ; 
and  to  which,  at  the  last  day,  he  would  elevate  his  follow- 
ers, called  forth  from  their  graves,  to  dwell,  above  the 
sins  and  sorrows  of  earth,  in  his  presence  forever. 
Whether  he  made  this  a  topic  of  his  instructions  on  the 
way  or  not;  yet,  surely,  he  who  had  passed  so  recently 
a  whole  night  in  prayer  on  the  mount  near  Capernaum, 
and  was  soon  afterwards  transfigured  on  such  an  eleva- 
tion, has  set  forth,  to  all  his  followers,  the  mountain  top, 
as  an  emblem  of  retirement  from  the  sins  and  turmoils  of 
this  evil  world,  and  of  approach  in  devotion  to  the  glories 
of  the  celestial  King  amid  his  worshippers  in  heaven. 
But  as,  with  this  emblem  of  heavenly  things  in  view,  the 
company  listen  on  their  walk  to  the  discourse  of  Jesus,  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  among  men,  the  mountain  is  soon 
reached  ;  and,  as  they  wind  their  way  around  its  shadowy 
base,  the  city  of  Nain  emerges  to  their  view,  with  its 
walls  and  towers  and  dwellings,  all  shining  joyously  be- 
neath the  rays  of  one  common  sun,  and  resting  quietly  on 
the  surface  of  one  common  world.  Yet,  in  those  distant 
habitations  so  quietly  reposing  among  the  works  of  God, 
what  different  characters  reside,  of  the  pious  and  profane  ; 
what  different  scenes  are  enacted,  of  joy  and  sorrow  !  In 
one  habitation  the  guilty,  it  may  be,  are  holding  their  im- 

17 


122      Raising  from  the  Dead  the  Widow's  Son  at  Xain. 


pious  revelry  of  riot  and  excess.  In  another,  the  pious 
are  rejoicing  in  the  goodness  and  mercy  of  the  God  of 
Abraham,  and  talking  of  their  hopes  in  his  promises. 
Prosperity  is  gladdening  the  hearts  there  of  some  happy, 
unbroken  households.  Adversity  enters  others ;  and 
hearts  are  grieved  by  losses,  disappointments,  bereave- 
ments. Yet  one  dwelling  there,  is  desolate  and  saddened 
that  day  ; — the  object  of  special  interest  within  the  city— 
and  which  has  drawn  hither  the  all-seeing  and  compas- 
sionate Saviour  :  for  death  has  entered  it,  and  the  inmates 
at  this  very  hour  are  going  forth  in  sorrow  to  bury  their 
dead. 

It  is  the  house  where  once  a  happy  husband  and  wife 
shared  each  other's  joys  and  sorrows  in  that  most  en- 
deared of  unions :  whose  hearts  had  once  throbbed  to- 
gether with  parental  joy  over  the  birth  of  a  first-born — a 
beloved  son  of  their  hopes.  But  that  union  had  since 
been  dissolved  by  death  :  and  the  heart-broken  wife,  be- 
reft of  the  counselor,  the  companion,  the  friend,  on  whom 
she  was  wont  to  lean  as  the  stay  of  her  life,  had  been  left 
in  her  loneliness  to  shed  the  tear  of  sorrow  over  his 
grave.  But  the  son  remained  ;  the  object  of  her  affection 
and  cares.  And,  faithful  to  the  memory  of  the  departed 
parent,  she  had  watched  over  the  child,  till  now  she  saw 
him,  in  early  manhood,  ready  to  assist  her;  to  bear  her 
burdens  ;  to  cheer  her  declining  years,  as  onward  she 
traveled  toward  the  grave.  What  hopes  were  placed  in 
this  beloved  son  !  What  a  solace  in  him  had  God  raised 
up  to  soothe  her  widowed  heart ! 

But  now  a  bitter  pang  has  pierced  her  soul.  This  son, 
her  hope  and  solace,  has  sickened ;  and,  notwithstanding 
all  her  assiduous  watchings  and  care,  has  fallen  beneath 
the  power  of  disease.  He  has  spoken  to  her  the  last  fare- 
well of  his  heart,  as  he  died  ;  and  has  left  her  alone  in  the 
world,  parted  from  all  her  once  loved  and  happy  house- 
hold. The  precious  body  of  this  only  son,  she  was  that 
day  to  follow  to  the  grave.  Much  people  of  the  city  were 
touched  with  sympathy  for  her  in  her  affliction.  The 
companions  of  her  departed  husband,  the  companions  of 


Raising  from  the  Dead  the  Widow's  Son  at  Nain.      123 


her  son,  many  pitying  friends,— have  come  to  her  desolate 
mansion,  to  accompany  her  on  her  way  to  the  place  of 
burial.  This  mourning  group  were  on  their  way,  at  the 
time  that  Jesus  with  his  disciples  and  the  accompanying 
multitude,  drew  nigh  the  city.  As  he  looks  towards  the 
gate,  the  train  appears  in  sight  bearing  out  the  dead  to 
the  sepulcher,  situated,  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
Jews,  beyond  the  walls  of  the  city.  The  whole  scene  is 
presented  to  us  in  the  following  description  of  the  histo- 
rian, most  beautiful  for  its  classic  brevity  and  its  touching 
simplicity  :  "  Now  when  he  was  come  nigh  the  gate  of 
the  city,  behold,  there  was  a  dead  man  carried  out,  the 
only  son  of  his  mother,  and  she  was  a  widow  :  and  much 
people  of  the  city  was  with  her." 

What  different  thoughts  and  emotions  actuate  the  com- 
pany that  move  with  Jesus  and  this  company  of  mourn- 
ers, as  they  meet  !  The  disciples  and  the  multitude  sur- 
rounding the  Master,  have  just  come  from  the  mount, 
where,  in  prayer,  in  instruction,  and  in  healing  a  great 
multitude  of  their  diseases,  Jesus  has  drawn  nigh  the 
Father  and  brought  down  his  presence  and  power  to  the 
earth.  Many  in  this  crowd,  doubtless,  are  thankfully  re- 
joicing in  recovery  ;  and  all, — disciples  and  others — are 
filled  with  thoughts  of  the  presence  and  power  of  God  in 
this  Galilean  teacher.  The  sympathizing  train  of  mourn- 
ers, on  the  other  hand,  move  slowly  onwards.  Thoughts 
of  the  happy  past,  thoughts  of  the  departed  dead, 
thoughts  of  the  desolate  survivor,  are  coursing  over 
their  hearts,  furrowing  sadness  there  :  and  from  some 
pious  sons  and  daughters  of  Abraham  in  that  train,  no 
doubt,  prayers  of  the  heart  are  ascending  to  Jehovah 
that  in  his  holy  habitation  he  would  be  the  God  and  pro- 
tecting Judge  of  this  widow. 

As  the  trains  meet  each  other,  the  eye  of  Jesus,  passing 
in  its  direction  over  the  whole  melancholy  group,  fastens 
on  the  chief  mourner — the  object  of  all  this  sympathy— 
who  is  overwhelmed  with  sadness.  His  compassionate 
heart  is  touched  :  and  within  it  lies  concealed  that  pur- 
pose of  mercy  which,  in  part,  had  brought  him  hither, 


124      Raising  from  tlic  Dead  the  Widow  s  Son  at  Nain. 

and  which  would  soon  give  back  to  her  her  lost  treasure, 
and  cause  the  tears  of  grief  to  give  place  to  smiles  of 
gladness.  "  And  when  the  Lord  saw  her,  he  had  compas- 
sion on  her,  and  said  unto  her,  Weep  not."  These  were 
soothing  words  ;  spoken  by  one  who  has  power  to  reach 
and  to  remove  every  source  of  tears.  Nor  did  Jesus  pass 
by  with  the  utterance  merely  of  words  of  sympathy. 
"  And  he  came  and  touched  the  bier."  On  that  support, 
not  with  coffin  as  among  the  Babylonians  and  Egyptians, 
but  simply  wrapped  in  folds  of  white  linen  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  Hebrews  for  depositing  in  the  sepulcher,  rested 
the  body  of  the  dead,  borne  of  four.  By  touching  the 
bier,  Jesus  betokened  his  wish  that  the  bearers  and  pro- 
cession should  halt  on  their  way.  "  And  they  that  bare 
him  stood  still."  All  now  wait  in  breathless  expectation, 
to  see  what  this  famed  teacher  designs.  They  have  heard 
doubtless  of  the  many  miracles  he  has  wrought  among 
the  living,  and  how  he  has  called  back  the  sick  and  faint- 
ing from  the  very  gates  of  the  grave.  But  never,  as  yet, 
—for  the  resurrection  of  Jairus'  daughter  and  of  Lazarus 
took  place  at  a  later  period, — has  his  voice  reached  be- 
yond that  barrier  that  separates  between  the  living  and 
the  dead  ;  between  the  lifeless  body  that  remains  and  the 
animating  spirit  that  has  departed.  Yet  his  voice  of  om- 
nipotence can  pierce  the  shadowy  realms  of  the  dead, 
and  call  back  from  thence  the  departed  spirit  to  inhabit 
again  its  forsaken  body.  That  voice  now  issues  the  word 
of  authority  :  "  And  he  said,  Young  man,  I  say  unto  thee, 
Arise."  *  I  say  it,' — that  all  may  know  that  with  me  are 
the  keys  of  death  and  Hades  ;  '  I  say  it,' — as  having  the 
power  of  life  and  resurrection  in  myself:  '  Young  man, 
Arise.'  O,  what  a  voice  was  that  to  fall  on  the  heavy  heart 
of  the  mourning  widow  !  What  a  new  train  of  thoughts 
and  emotions  it  awakens  at  once  within  her  soul !  '  Can 
it  be  that  my  darling  child  shall  hear  that  voice  and  come 
back  to  me  again  ?'  *  Can  I  again  clasp  his  living  form  to 
this  aching  breast,  and  receive  again  from  his  lips  words 
of  respect  and  affection,  and  from  his  hands  deeds  of 
kindness,  to  cheer  the  remnant  of  my  life  ?'  That  voice 


Raising'  fro in  the  Dead  the  Widow  s  $on  at  Nain.      12 


has  gone  forth.  There  are  no  shades  of  death  so  deep  that 
it  cannot  reach  them.  The  spirit  of  the  young  man  has 
heard  it,  and  has  come  back  once  more  to  the  body.  The 
dead  is  alive  again  ;  and  before  all  he  puts  forth  infallible 
tokens  of  life.  "  And  he  that  was  dead  sat  up  and  began 
to  speak"  :  There  was  a  muscular  motion  of  the  body, 
in  assuming  this  sitting  posture,  that  seemed  voluntary, 
not  spasmodic ;  and  that  was  proved  to  be  such,  by  articu- 
late speech,  expressing  the  thoughts  of  a  living,  indwell- 
ing soul.  What  he  spake,  we  are  not  told  ;  but,  while 
sitting  up  in  his  grave  clothes,  looking  on  Jesus,  on  his 
mother,  on  the  astonished  and  awe-struck  accompanying 
multitude, — whether  he  spoke  of  things  in  the  sick  room 
he  had  recently  left,  or  of  the  new  circumstances  in  which 
he  now  suddenly  finds  himself — whether  he  spoke  of 
things  in  this  world  or  in  the  eternal — whatever  were  his 
words — he  was  a  powerful  preacher  of  Jesus  and  the 
resurrection. 

But  this  recovery  was  not  for  the  moment  merely  :  to 
cast  one  gleam  of  joy  and  hope  across  a  mourning  heart, 
and  leave  it  to  still  greater  gloom  and  disappointment 
than  ever.  The  historian  adds :  "  And  he  delivered  him 
to  his  mother."  Jesus,  who,  it  was  now  manifest,  held  the 
life  of  this  young  man  in  his  own  hand,  either  to  dismiss 
it  again,  that  the  body  might  be  carried  to  the  sepulcher, 
or  to  retain  it  on  earth  for  a  further  participation  in  the 
social  intercourse  of  the  living,  as  he  gave  him  to  his 
mother,  assured  her  heart,  it  is  probable  in  some  form  of 
words :  '  Receive  thy  son  :  return  with  him  to  thy  man- 
sion :  and  let  the  compassion  of  this  hour  prove  a  bless- 
ing to  thee  for  the  remnant  of  thy  days.'  Nor  was  the 
chief  mourner  and  her  son  alone,  affected  by  this  wonder- 
ful act  of  compassion.  "  And  there  came  a  fear  on  all." 
The  train  that  followed  the  dead  out  of  the  city,  and  the 
train  that  followed  Jesus  on  his  visit  to  the  city,  are  now 
commingled  in  astonishment  at  the  mighty  power  of  this 
resurrection.  "  And  they  glorified  God,  saying  that  a 
great  prophet  is  risen  up  among  us  :  and  that  God  hath 
visited  his  people."  Never,  since  the  day  that  Elisha 


126      Raising  from  the  Dead  the  Widow  s  Son  at 


raised  up  the  child  of  the  Shunamite,  had  any  such  thing 
been  seen  in  Israel.  And  justly  did  many  in  that  multi- 
tude conclude  that,  in  the  person  of  Jesus,  God  himself 
was  now  present  on  some  great  purpose  and  errand  of 
mercy,  to  fulfill  the  covenant  he  had  made  to  the  fathers 
respecting  Messiah  the  King  and  the  Saviour.  The  his- 
torian closes  the  account  of  this  miracle  with  these  words, 
"  And  this  rumor  of  him"— or  rather  this  story  of  his 
raising  the  young  man  of  Nain  from  the  dead,  which  I 
have  related — "  went  forth  throughout  all  Judea  and 
throughout  all  the  region  round  about  "  ;  i.  e.,  Judea  and 
the  surrounding  region  of  Galilee.  This  wide  spread 
circulation  of  the  story  was  to  be  expected.  For  not  only 
were  the  eyewitnesses  very  numerous,  but  in  the  train 
that  followed  Jesus  that  day  from  the  recent  scene  of  the 
mount  of  instruction  there  were  inhabitants  of  all  these 
countries,  who,  with  this  wonderful  story  upon  their  lips, 
were  soon  to  be  dispersed  to  their  several  homes  ;  so  that, 
wherever  they  went,  they  told  their  friends  of  the  mighty 
power  and  compassion  of  Jesus. 

Among  the  instructions  to  be  gathered  from  this  scene 
in  the  life  of  Jesus,  I  will  present  the  following. 

i.  In  this  journey  to  Nain,  Jesus  presents  to  our  imita- 
tion an  example  of  beneficence.  While  at  Capernaum,  he 
saw  with  his  omniscient  ken  the  recent  scene  of  death  in 
that  city,  and  resolved  to  visit  the  place,  and  give  relief 
to  the  desolate  heart  of  the  mourning  widow.  Thither, 
to  fulfill  his  compassionate  purpose,  he  directed  his  steps. 
Unsolicited  by  any  one,  he  went  forth  to  accomplish  the 
impulses  of  his  own  generous  heart.  He  sought  out  this 
daughter  of  affliction  in  her  sorrows.  He  went  the  whole 
distance  that  he  might  show  her  kindness.  And  when 
arrived  in  her  presence,  unasked  by  her  or  any  of  her 
friends,  he  imparted  relief  freely  ;  and,  by  this  unexpected 
and  surprising  act  of  beneficence,  made  glad  her  deso- 
late heart  and  the  hearts  of  all  her  sympathizing  friends. 
So  Jesus  went  about  doing  good  among  the  people  ;  dis- 
pensing freely  to  the  needy  and  afflicted  the  gifts  of  his 
benevolence.  In  this  has  he  left  us  an  example  ;  that  we 


Raising  from  tJic  Dead  the  Widow  s  Son  at  Nain.      127 


should  imbibe  his  spirit  of  generous  compassion,  and  walk 
in  his  footsteps  of  unwearied  kindness.  Not  that  we  may 
enter  into  those  works  of  might  and  power  that  exceed 
our  natures  and  our  powers  to  accomplish  :  but  that,  in 
our  measures  and  according  to  our  opportunities,  we 
should  seek  the  needy  and  suffering,  and  freely  dispense 
the  gifts  and  offices  of  our  charity  for  their  temporal  and 
spiritual  relief. 

In  a  world  of  sin  and  trial,  where  guilt  and  suffering 
surround  us  on  every  side,  it  is  not  by  sitting  quietly  in 
our  homes  weeping  over  the  perusal  of  fictitious  tales  of 
sorrow,  nor  by  waiting  to  be  sought  and  solicited  by  the 
needy  and  suffering,  nor  merely  by  soliciting  the  aid  of 
our  Father  in  heaven  on  their  behalf,  when  we  can  dis- 
pense substantial  aid  ourselves,  that  we  follow  the 
example  of  Christ,  so  much  as  when,  with  compassion  in 
our  hearts  towards  the  suffering,  we  go  forth,  unasked,  to 
meet  them  in  their  wants,  and  freely  dispense  to  them  the 
relief  in  our  power.  To  this,  the  act  of  Christ  that  we 
have  considered  calls  us,  as  a  guiding  and  inspiring  exam- 
ple, showing  how  blessed  it  is  to  give  relief  to  others,  and 
to  be  a  fount  of  temporal  and  spiritual  blessing  in  this 
ignorant,  guilty,  suffering  world. 

Go  imitate  the  grace  divine, 

The  grace  that  blazes  like  a  sun  ; 
Hold  forth  your  fair  though  feeble  light — 

Through  all  your  lives  let  mercy  run. 

2.  From  the  scene  at  Nain  we  learn,  that  in  Jesus  we 
have  a  sympathizing  friend  who  can  reach  and  heal  every 
source  of  sorrow.  When  he  met  the  weeping  daughter 
of  affliction  in  the  depth  of  her  sorrows,  he  spake  those 
words  of  solace  with  an  accompanying  energy  that 
removed  the  very  fountain  of  her  grief — "  Weep  not." 
These  are  cheering  words  to  be  brought  down  to  this  vale 
of  sin  and  sorrow,  and  to  be  left  with  us  by  one  who  came 
from  the  heavenly  throne  with  full  powers  of  grace  from 
the  Father  and  in  his  own  person  to  relieve,  and  who  has 
ascended  to  the  Father  again  to  carry  forward  still  his 
works  of  mercy. 


128      Raising  from  the  Dead  t  lie  Widow  s  Son  at  Nain. 


And  what  source  of  grief  and  tears  among  our  fallen 
race  is  there,  that  this  Saviour  cannot  reach  and  heal  ? 
Not  that  he  designs  to  remove  every  imperfection,  every 
burden,  every  trial,  every  sorrow,  from  the  subjects  of  his 
grace  while  they  remain  on  the  theater  of  this  life.  For, 
as  sin  is  the  chief  inlet  of  all  our  sorrows,  and  as  to  heal 
the  spiritual  maladies  of  the  soul  and  fit  it  for  the  holy 
joys  of  heaven  is  the  chief  object  of  his  grace,  it  is  wisely 
appointed,  in  favor  of  our  spiritual  recovery  and  for 
moral  improvement  by  discipline,  that,  while  we  remain 
here,  we  should  be  subjected  to  trials,  more  or  less  severe. 
Yet  those  soothing  words  from  the  Saviour — "Weep  not," 
reveal  to  us  in  the  Captain  of  our  salvation  a  sympathiz- 
ing Friend,  who  is  conducting  his  followers  through  every 
tribulation  to  final  and  complete  deliverance.  There  is 
no  sorrow  therefore  which  comes  upon  us,  in  which  we 
may  not  apply  to  him  for  sympathy  and  support,  and 
with  the  hope  of  a  final  deliverance.  Is  it  sin  and  guilt 
and  remorse?  Even  from  these  his  atoning  blood  can 
cleanse  us,  to  pacify  the  conscience  and  bring  the  peace  of 
divine  forgiveness.  Is  it  the  moral  disorders  that  still 
remain  in  his  people,  to  hinder  their  progress  and  inter- 
rupt their  joy  in  his  service?  To  all  these  he  is  now 
applying  the  remedies  of  his  grace,  that  he  may  purify 
his  people,  and  bring  them  to  spotless  holiness  in  his  pres- 
ence in  heaven.  Is  it  the  disappointments,  the  losses,  the 
bereavements,  the  sufferings  of  the  present  time,  and  the 
uncertainties  of  the  future,  that  distress  our  hearts  and 
open  the  fountain  of  our  tears  ?  But  in  all  these  chang- 
ing aspects  of  the  present  and  uncertainties  of  the  future, 
he  assures  us  that  the  eternal  providence  of  his  Father  is 
ever  over  his  people  for  their  good  ;  consulting  their 
highest  welfare ;  conducting  them  in  the  right  way 
to  a  glorious  habitation  of  rest  beyond  all  the  storms 
and  changes  of  this  mortal  life.  What  though  no  man 
is  found  able  to  unfold  the  book  of  providence  and 
read  the  destiny  that  hangs  over  the  future  ?  Weep 
not,  as  though  all  were  uncertain.  The  Lion  of  the  tribe 


Raising  from  the  Dead  the  Widow's  Son  at  Nain.      129 

of  Judah,  the  Root  of  David,  hath  prevailed  to  open  the 
book.  The  fate  of  his  kingdom  on  earth  and  of  his  people 
after  they  pass  the  tribulations  of  this  life,  he,  who  hath 
the  keys  of  the  eternal  world,  hath  caused  to  be  read 
forth  to  us  by  one  of  his  servants.  "  They  are  before  the 
throne  of  God,  and  serve  him  day  and  night  in  his 
temple.  They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any 
more,  neither  shall  the  sun  light  on  them  nor  any  heat. 
For  the  Lamb  that  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  feed 
them,  and  shall  lead  them  unto  living  fountains  of  waters." 
"  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes  :  and 
there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying, 
neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain  :  for  the  former 
things  are  passed  away." 

3.  In  this  scene  at  Nain,  Jesus  revealed  himself  to  be  the 
source  of  resurrection  and  immortal  life  to  his  people  after 
death.  For  the  word  of  power  which  he  spake  that 
day  :  "  Young  man,  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise,"  reached 
beyond  the  vale  of  death  ;  called  back  the  departed  spirit 
to  its  lifeless  remains  ;  and  presented  that  young  man,  in 
his  re-animated  body,  on  this  theater  of  life  again.  This 
stupendous  miracle  convinced  the  astonished  witnesses, 
that  with  Jesus  was  the  power  of  resurrection  and  life.  For 
to  the  mourning  train  \vho  could  not  have  been  deceived 
as  to  the  death  of  the  young  man,  and  to  the  train  who 
came  with  Jesus,  who  had  evidently  met  this  mourning 
group  without  any  collusion  or  plan  formed  between  them 
to  deceive  others — to  both,  it  was  obvious  that  the  words 
of  Jesus,  "  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise,"  were  accompanied  with 
a  divine  energy  and  were  the  source  of  a  resurrection  to 
life.  The  conviction  was  fastened  deep  on  their  minds. 
They  expressed  it  to  one  another,  as  they  said,  "  A  great 
prophet  is  risen  up  among  us  "  ;  "  God  hath  visited  his 
people."  Through  Judea  and  Galilee,  when  they  dis- 
persed, they  spread  the  report  with  their  testimony.  And 
this  report,  gathered  from  eyewitnesses  by  the  diligent 
inquiries  of  the  historian  Luke,  was  published  at  the  time 
and  in  the  country  in  which  the  witnesses  lived,  without 
any  denial ;  to  make  known  to  all  lands  and  ages  the 

18 


130     Raising  from  the  Dead  t  lie  Widow's  Son  al  Xain. 


majesty  and  power  of  Jesus  our  Lord.  Jesus  therefore 
was  made  manifest  on  that  day  and  in  this  particular 
miracle,  as  one  who  hath  visited  us  in  this  world  of 
shadows  and  death  with  the  power  of  life.  The  promises 
he  put  forth,  that  he  would  convey  his  people  to  an  im- 
mortal life  beyond  the  confines  of  the  grave,  and  col- 
lect them  together,  at  his  second  appearing  on  this  world, 
again  by  resurrection — these  promises  were  shown  at  this 
time  to  be  true,  not  by  miracle  merely,  but  by  the  nature 
of  the  miracle  in  which  he  triumphed  over  death  by  an 
instance  of  resurrection,  and  by  the  manner  in  which  he 
claimed  the  power  of  life  to  be  in  his  own  hands:  "/say 
unto  thee."  As  the  Father  hath  life  in  himself,  so  hath  he 
given  to  the  Son  to  have  life  in  himself.  The  report  first 
went  forth  from  Nain,  that  the  dead  had  heard  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  God  and  lived.  Nor  need  we  marvel  at 
this:  for  it  is  but  the  foreshadowing  of  greater  works  that 
are  to  follow.  For  he  hath  said,  ".The  hour  is  coming  in 
the  which  all  that  are  in  the  graves  shall  hear  his  voice 
and  come  forth,  they  that  have  done  good  unto  the  resur- 
rection of  life,  and  they  that  have  done  evil  unto  the 
resurrection  of  damnation." 

Who  then  should  not  in  these  days,  in  which  he  waits 
on  us  with  the  opportunities  of  salvation,  believe  on  him  ; 
who  holds  in  his  hands  the  power  of  an  '  everlasting  life  '  : 
and  who  hath  left  to  every  believer  the  promise  "  I  will 
raise  him  up  at  the  last  day  "  ?  Who  should  not  believe 
on  him,  and  secure  to  his  soul  a  spiritual  life  with  him, 
even  now  in  this  mortal  estate,  and  beyond  this  life  a 
resurrection  with  him  to  immortal  glory  in  heaven  ? 

4.  Finally  :  The  scene  at  Nain  assists  us  to  appreciate 
the  happiness  that  will  attend  on  the  meeting  of  pious 
households  after  death. 

That  was  a  happy  time  when  Jesus  delivered  the 
dead,  brought  back  again  to  life,  to  the  embrace  and 
affection  of  his  desolate  parent ;  when  the  mother  and 
son,  whom  death  had  parted  amid  sorrows,  were  thus 
brought  together  again  by  a  joyful  resurrection.  The 
tears  of  grief  gave  way  to  those  of  joy,  and  the  sympa- 


'Raising  from  tJic  Dead  t lie  Widow's  Son  at  Nain.      131 


thizing  multitude,  who  beheld  the  re-union,  rejoiced  in  the 
consolation  and  gave  glory  to  God.  But  great  as  was 
the  joy,  it  was  not  complete.  They  met  again  here  on 
earth,  amid  the  trials  of  this  mortal  state.  They  stood 
together  before  Christ  in  his  humiliation  at  the  foot  of 
Tabor  ;  and  not  in  his  glory  on  its  top,  as  did  the  glori- 
fied Moses  and  Elias. 

There  was  joy  even  in  this  meeting  again  after  death : 
but  what  was  the  joy  compared  to  that  fullness  that  shall 
overflow  the  heart,  when  pious  households,  who  have  been 
separated  one  after  another  by  death,  shall  meet  together 
—beyond  all  mortality  and  grief — beyond  all  tempta- 
tion and  sin — on  those  heavenly  heights  where,  in  his 
glorified  state,  Jesus  the  Saviour  shall  receive  his  re- 
deemed to  himself,  to  behold  his  glory  and  to  dwell  in  the 
love  of  his  Father  forever.  Happy  indeed  will  it  be  for 
those  households  that  shall  be  all  gathered  there,  with  no 
member  missing  !  And  though  no  sorrow  or  fear  shall 
ever  come  up  to  those  heavenly  heights — though  all  there 
will  be  filled  with  the  love  of  God  and  acquiesce  in  all  his 
dispensations — yet  methinks  there  will  be  a  less  degree  of 
joy  in  the  heart  of  that  parent,  that  child,  that  brother, 
that  sister,  who  looks  around  in  vain  for  some  of  their 
once  loved  circle.  While  sad  indeed  to  the  missing 
and  the  absent  will  be  their  eternal  parting  and  anguish  ! 
Let  parents  then,  let  children,  let  brothers,  let  sisters,  as 
they  are  soon  to  be  parted  from  all  their  earthly  inter- 
course by  death,  and  as  they  believe  in  the  coming  and 
glory  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  strive  together  in  their  prayers 
and  efforts  in  this  life  to  promote  each  other's  spiritual 
welfare,  so  that  they  may  reach  at  last  a  happy  re-union 
in  his  presence  amid  the  unchanging  glories  of  the  hea- 
venly state  ! 


THE  SCENE  OF  THE  TRANSFIGURATION,  AND 
THE  DISCOURSE  OF  JESUS  WITH  THE  THREE 
WITNESSING  DISCIPLES  AS  THEY  WERE 
DESCENDING  FROM  THE  MOUNTAIN. 


MATT.  XVII:  1-13— MARK  IX:  2-13— LUKE  IX  :  28-36. 

EACH  of  these  sacred  historians  introduces  his  account  of 
this  remarkable  scene,  by  referring  back  to  a  conversation 
which  Jesus  had  held  with  the  twelve,  a  week  previously, 
in  the  region  of  Cassarea  Philippi.  "  After  six  days,"  say 
both  Matthew  and  Mark ;  referring  to  the  intervening 
days  :  and  Luke  says,  including  the  first  and  last  day,  "  It 
came  to  pass  about  eight  days  after  these  sayings  " — all 
of  them  dating  from  that  one  conversation.  There  would 
seem  then  to  be1  some  connection  between  that  conversa- 
tion and  this  scene,  which  brought  them  together  in  the 
minds  of  the  inspired  historians  more  closely  than  even 
this  short  lapse  of  time.  They  both  relate  to  the  person 
and  impending  fate  of  Jesus.  In  that  conversation,  Christ 
had  asked  the  twelve,  '  Whom  say  the  people  that  I 
am?'  And  when,  in  answer  to  this  question,  they  men- 
tioned the  various  opinions  they  had  heard  expressed,  he 
asked  them  again,  *  Whom  say  ye  that  I  am  ?  '  Peter 
confessed  that  he  was  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God  : 
upon  which,  Jesus  enjoined  silence  in  regard  to  any  such 
confession  before  the  public  at  present — it  being  prema- 
ture ;  but  began  a  language  he  had  never  held  with  them 
before,  about  the  violent  treatment  and  death  he  was  soon 
to  suffer  at  Jerusalem,  and  his  resurrection  that  was  to 
follow  on  the  third  day  ;  and  respecting  the  trials  which 
were  to  be  encountered  by  his  followers,  which  it  became 
them  to  endure  if  they  would  have  eternal  life  when  he 


134  T/ic  Transfiguration. 


assumed  his  glory  :  which  event  he  assured  them  would 
take  place  during  the  lifetime  of  some  of  their  number. 
This  week  was  one  then  of  sadness  and  misgiving,  it 
would  seem,  to  the  apostles,  in  their  apprehensions  of  the 
future.  Peter  had  exclaimed,  in  regard  to  the  foretold 
treatment  of  Jesus — That  be  far  from  thee,  Lord — and  was 
left  sad  with  the  severe  rebuke  of  his  Master. 

At  a  time  then  when  the  ministry  of  Jesus  was  soon  to 
close  in  death,  and  when  his  disciples  were  hearing  from 
his  lips  sad  forebodings  of  what  they  were  to  endure,  and 
could  scarcely  comprehend  what  was  meant  by  the  inti- 
mations of  his  death  and  resurrection  and  glory,  it  was, 
that  he  himself  and  three  chosen  ones  of  his  disciples  were 
favored  with  this  partial  foretaste  of  his  glory. 

The  place  in  which  the  scene  was  laid  was  a  mountain  ; 
the  name  is  not  given  by  either  of  the  evangelists  :  but 
Matthew  and  Mark  call  it  a  "  high  "  mountain.  The  cur- 
rent opinion  of  antiquity  has  fixed  the  scene  on  Tabor, 
one  of  the  loftiest  mountains  in  the  holy  land.  Yet  many 
of  the  moderns  suppose  it  to  have  been  Mount  Hermon, 
a  lofty  branch  of  the  Anti-Libanus  range  ;  because  this 
elevation  was  in  the  region  of  Cassarea  Philippi,  at  the 
head  of  the  Jordan,  where  Jesus  was,  the  week  before, 
when  he  began  to  speak  of  his  approaching  death  at 
Jerusalem.  Yet  as  six  full  days  had  passed  since  that 
time,  it  is  possible  surely  that  he  should  now  be  two  or 
three  days  journey  south  in  Galilee,  and  the  opinion  of 
antiquity  may  still  be  true,  which  fixes  the  scene  upon 
Tabor.  But  whether  the  lofty  Hermon  at  the  north,  or 
the  lofty  Tabor  of  the  south,  rejoiced  in  this  visit  of  its 
God,  may  remain  in  doubt,  while  we  contemplate  in  faith 
this  great  scene  of  the  mountain  top. 

Jesus,  before  he  ascended  the  mount,  selected  from  the 
twelve  three  only  as  his  companions.  He  took  a  few, 
probably  as  more  consonant  to  retirement  from  men  and 
near  approach  to  God — and  still  a  number  competent  to 
give  authoritative  testimony.  They  were  Peter,  James 
and  John :  Peter,  the  first  called  of  the  whole  band, 
whom  he  met  on  his  arrival  at  the  lake  after  his  expulsion 


The  Transfiguration.  135 


from  Nazareth,  and  James  and  John,  the  sons  of  his 
paternal  aunt,  the  wife  of  Zebedee :  persons,  whom  he 
seemed  to  have  regarded  with  peculiar  attachment,  as  his 
most  intimate  friends  among  the  twelve — a  feeling  belong- 
ing to  human  nature,  even  in  the  holiest  and  most  liberal 
and  expansive  in  their  benevolence  ; — persons,  who  before 
had  been  selected  from  the  band  by  him  to  be  witnesses 
in  the  room  at  the  raising  of  Jairus'  daughter  ;  and  who 
were  afterwards  his  companions  in  that  scene  of  agony 
which  he  endured,  on  the  night  of  his  betrayal,  in  his  last 
retirement  for  prayer  before  his  crucifixion,  in  the  garden 
of  Gethsemane. 

With  these  three  chosen  disciples  he  ascends  the  mount, 
probably  towards  the  close  of  day,  or  in  the  evening ;  for 
the  glory,  the  cloud  of  light,  the  drowsiness  of  the  dis- 
ciples, and  the  declaration  of  Luke  ix  :  37,  that  they 
descended  from  the  mount  the  next  day,  all  show  that, 
like  the  scene  in  Gethsemane,  this  also  was  a  scene  of  the 
night.  At  an  hour  when  all  nature  seems  retiring  to 
silence  and  rest  on  the  care  of  its  God,  he.  leaves  the 
presence  and  habitations  of  men,  and  seeks  the  high 
mountain  top,  that  he  and  his  disciples  may  be  apart  by 
themselves,  with  nothing  but  the  wakeful  eye  and  heart 
of  God  turned  toward  them,  that  they  may  approach 
more  nearly  and  intimately  into  his  presence  in  prayer. 
There,  with  the  broad  heaven  from  which  he  came  and 
whither  he  was  to  ascend,  spread  over  his  head,  and  with 
that  world,  which  he  came  to  save,  wrapped  in  darkness 
and  sleep  far  beneath  his  feet ;  there,  looking  forward  to 
that  scene  of  agony  soon  to  be  encountered,  which  had 
occupied  his  thoughts  and  the  thoughts  of  his  disciples 
during  the  week  that  was  past — agony,  through  which 
alone  he  was  to  reach  again  his  exalted  throne  and  raise 
up  with  him  from  the  earth  a  redeemed  people ;  there, 
as  a  Mediator  between  heaven  and  earth,  pressed  with 
impending  trial,  he  pours  out  his  soul  for  strength  and 
victory  in  breathings  of  fervent  prayer  unto  his  Father. 
He  prayed  with  strong  crying  and  tears  unto  God,  who 
was  able  to  deliver  him,  and  he  was  heard  in  respect  to 


1 36  The  Transfiguration. 


that  which  he  feared  ;  and,  to  encourage  his  heart,  he 
was,  for  a  few  moments,  invested  by  the  father  with  a 
shadow  of  the  glory  to  which  he  was  to  be  permanently 
exalted  after  enduring  his  agonies.  "  As  he  prayed,  the 
fashion  of  his  countenance,"  says  Luke,  "  was  altered  " 
"  became  another"  :  Matthew  and  Mark  say  that  "  he  was 
transfigured  "  — "  passed  beyond  the  form  or  figure  he 
had  to  another  " •— "  was  transformed."  The  change  how- 
ever was  not  to  a  form  so  essentially  new  in  the  mould 
and  outlines  as  not  to  be  still  clearly  recognized  by  the 
disciples  as  that  of  Jesus.  But  the  expression  passed 
from  the  former  lines  of  earthly  care  to  the  glow  of 
godlike  majesty  and  serenity  :  and,  instead  of  the  faint 
reflections  cast  upon  it  from  the  stars  before,  that  made  it 
barely  visible,  it  has  now  become  self-radiant  with  light 
as  a  sun.  The  brief  description  given  of  his  altered 
appearance  is  the  following  :  "  His  face  did  shine  as  the 
sun  "  (Matthew).  "  His  raiment  became  shining,  exceed- 
ing white  as  snow,  so  as  no  fuller  on  earth  can  white 
them  "  (Mark).  His  face  glowed  with  a  golden  radiance 
as  of  the  sun,  and  his  raiment  was  shining  in  a  pure  white, 
beyond  the  brilliancy  of  the  sun-light  reflected  from  the 
snow.  This  visible  form  of  light  and  majesty  was  the 
same  as  that  in  which,  after  his  ascension,  he  was  seen  by 
John  in  his  vision  at  Patmos — and  was  now  a  temporary 
representation,  to  himself  and  the  disciples,  of  the  splen- 
dor of  his  heavenly  and  eternal  state.  As  this  glory 
passed  upon  his  person,  suddenly  he  was  visited  from  the 
heavenly  world  by  Elijah,  who  nine  hundred  y ears  before 
was  translated  to  that  world,  and  by  Moses,  who  more 
than  fifteen  hundred  years  before  had  been  taken  away 
from  Israel  on  Nebo.  "  Behold  there  talked  with  him 
two  men,  which  were  Moses  and  Elias,  who  appeared  in 
glory  "  —  themselves  radiant  in  their  glorified  forms.  The 
subject  of  the  conversation  is  mentioned  by  Luke.  They 
"  spake  of  his  decease  which  he  should  accomplish  at 
Jerusalem."  The  term  which  the  evangelist  uses,  it  is  to 
be  remarked,  is  not  death,  but  departure  out  of  the  world 
— exodus.  The  conversation  therefore  extended  beyond 


The  Transfiguration.  137 


the  agony  of  the  death  he  was  to  suffer,  to  the  exodus  he 
was  to  make,  as  the  leader  of  his  ransomed,  beyond  this 
world  of  trial  to  the  world  of  eternal  rest.  The  subject 
was  the  eternal  glory  he  would  obtain  to  himself  through 
the  sufferings  of  his  departure  and  how  in  that  hour  also 
he  would  conquer  sin,  death  and  hell,  the  foes  of  his 
people,  and  ever  after  rejoice  in  witnessing  their  eternal 
escape  and  redemption.  The  great  lawgiver  who  had 
conducted  Israel  from  their  earthly  bondage  to  Canaan, 
and  had  bidden  them  expect  onx  their  land  the  coming  of 
this  Saviour,  and  an  eminent  one  in  the  line  of  those 
prophets,  who  taught  Israel  for  a  succession  of  ages  to 
look  forward  to  him  as  their  hope,  seem  deputed  .at  this 
hour  from  the  heavenly  world,  as  appropriate  messengers, 
to  bear  to  Jesus  an  expression  of  the  hopes  which  the 
Church  of  the  first-born  in  heaven  are  all  reposing  on 
him  as  they  wait  for  him  to  come  among  them  after  the 
hour  of  his  sacrifice,  a  triumphant  Saviour,  establishing 
them  in  their  justified  and  glorified  state  to  eternity. 
They  may  also  point  to  the  long  train  of  believers  in  the 
Christian  Church  whom  they  will  yet  see  gathered  to  their 
company  in  heaven,  as  the  fruit  of  his  sufferings,  in  the 
coming  ages  of  his  reign.  We  have  not  been  permitted 
indeed  to  hear  the  particulars  of  that  deeply  interesting 
conversation  :  but  doubtless,  at  that  hour  of  foretaste  of 
his  future  glory  among  his  redeemed  people  in  heaven, 
fresh  courage  and  strength  was  infused  into  his  heart  to 
go  forward  to  endure  that  sharp  conflict,  out  of  which  he 
was  to  pass  into  such  exalted  glory  and  joy  forever,  and 
by  which,  as  at  the  triumphal  exodus  of  Moses  out  of 
Egypt,  he  was  to  conduct  the  people  of  God  in  all  ages 
to  a  permanent  habitation  in  the  heavenly  Canaan. 

But  before  this  strange  change  had  passed  upon  the 
person  of  the  Saviour,  and  before  the  arrival  of  these 
heavenly  visitants — while  yet  he  was  pouring  out  his  soul 
in  prayer,  and  was  covered  with  the  shades  of  night  and 
distress — the  disciples,  it  seems,  fell  asleep,  as  afterwards 
they  did  in  Gethsemane.  During  this  momentary  sleep 
of  the  disciples,  as  Luke  apprises  us,  the  change  took 

19 


138  The   Transfiguration. 


place  :  and,  as  they  awake,  this  new  scene  is  spread  forth 
in  its  glory.  "  But  Peter  and  they  that  were  with  him 
were  heavy  with  sleep  ;  and  when  they  were  awake,  they 
saw  his  glory,  and  the  two  men  that  stood  with  him." 
They  were  waked  probably  by  the  sudden  gleam  of  light 
that  shone  around  them  and  illuminated  the  mountain 
top  ;  and  beheld  with  surprise  their  Lord,  all  shining  in 
this  glorious  state,  and  at  his  side  two  heavenly  attend- 
ants, resplendent  in  glory.  They  wait  in  breathless 
silence,  as  they  hear  these  heavenly  visitants  converse 
with  their  Lord,  and  as  they  learn  from,  the  conversation 
their  names  and  the  stations  they  occupied  while  in  the 
earthly  Church.  In  this  state  of  astonishment,  as  if  in  a 
species  of  ecstacy  at  the  glory  of  his  Lord,  Peter  ven- 
tures to  exclaim  to  Jesus :  "  Master,  it  is  good  for  us  to 
be  here  ;  and  let  us  make  three  tabernacles  " — alluding  to 
the  booths  or  arbors  constructed  of  the  branches  of  thick 
foliaged  trees,  in  which  the  Jews  resided  during  the  joy- 
ous feast  of  the  tabernacles — "  one  for  thee,  and  one  for 
Moses,  and  one  for  Elias."  For  the  moment,  he  felt  that 
he  never  wished  his  Master  to  descend  from  this  heavenly 
state  to  earthly  cares  and  trials  again,  and  would  forever 
stay  there  himself  in  such  heavenly  society.  But  the 
historian  represents  him  as  "  not  knowing  what  he  said." 
In  making  his  strange  proposal  to  Jesus,  the  same  feeling 
was  manifest  that  had  received,  a  week  before,  the  rebuke 
of  his  Master — the  desire  that  it  should  be  far  from  Jesus 
to  undergo  a  violent  death  at  Jerusalem,  and  leave  his 
followers  to  encounter  the  hostility  of  the  world. 

But  no  sooner  has  Peter  uttered  these  emotions,  than  a 
new  appearance  attracts  the  attention  of  the  astonished 
disciples.  The  emblem  of  the  presence  of  the  Eternal 
Father — a  dense  cloud,  whose  whole  surface  is  radiant  with 
light,  appears,  enveloping  Jesus  and  his  attendants,  and 
circling  round  the  more  distant  disciples  with  its  massy 
folds.  u  While  he  thus  spake,  there  came  a  cloud  and 
overshadowed  them,  "  says  Luke  ;  "a  bright  cloud,"  says 
Matthew,  "  overshadowed  them  :  and  behold  a  voice  out 
of  the  cloud  which  said,  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom 


The  Transfiguration.  139 


I  am  well  pleased  :  hear  ye  him."  This  testimony  from 
the  Father  enforced  upon  the  disciples  the  instructive 
lesson  they  were  to  receive  from  the  scene  they  now  wit- 
nessed— that  Jesus  was  the  beloved  Son  of  God,  who,  as 
sole  Heir  to  his  estate  and  kingdom,  was  to  be  exalted  to 
the  head  of  the  whole  creation  :  in  whose  conduct,  as  a 
Redeemer  come  on  earth  to  make  known  the  Father  to 
men  and  to  endure  the  suffering's  of  the  cross  to  sustain 
his  righteousness  in  the  salvation  of  his  people,  he,  the 
Father,  was  well  pleased  :  and  whose  voice  of  instruction 
they  were  to  regard  as  speaking  forth  his  will,  with  a 
personal  authority  greater  than  that  of  Moses  and  the 
prophets,  who  were  mere  servants  to  him,  the  gre.at  Son 
and  Heir.  Thus, — in  that  glimpse  of  the  heavenly  state, 
in  which  Christ  shone  as  head  over  Moses  and  Elias,  and 
in  this  voice  from  the  excellent  glory,  in  which  the  Father 
placed  him  at  his  own  right  hand  as  his  Son  and  Heir  to 
his  throne, — the  disciples  and  Jesus  were  together  assured, 
that  he  was  conducting  his  people  as  their  Head  to  an 
everlasting  kingdom. 

But  as  this  cloud  of  glory  invested  all,  and  as  this  voice 
was  uttered,  the  disciples  for  a  while  seem  overpowered 
with  their  emotions.  "  They  feared,  as  they  entered  into 
the  cloud  "  (Luke).  "  And  when  the  disciples  heard  it," 
—the  voice — (Matthew) — "  they  fell  on  their  face  and 
were  sore  afraid."  And  as  they  were  thus  dismayed 
with  the  terror  of  the  divine  majesty,  "  Jesus  came  and 
touched  them,  and  said,  Arise,  and  be  not  afraid."  This 
well  known  voice  of  their  friend  re-assured  their  hearts. 
"  And  when  they  had  lifted  up  their  eyes,  they  saw  no 
man,  save  Jesus  only."  The  glory  and  terror  of  the  scene 
were  past :  and  again  they  were  alone  with  Jesus,  and  he, 
their  familiar  friend,  clothed  as  before  in  the  common  garb 
of  humanity.  They  were  prepared  now  to  descend  again 
to  the  world  they  had  left,  and  enter  on  the  duties  and 
trials  that  were  to  intervene  before  they  reached  the  hea- 
venly state.  "  And  as  they  came  down  from  the  moun- 
tain, Jesus  charged  them,  saying,  Tell  the  vision  to  no 
man,  until  the  Son  of  Man  be  risen  again  from  the  dead  " 


1 40  TJi  c  Tra  nsfign  ra  t  io  n . 


(Matthew).  The  reason  for  this  injunction  of  silence  till 
that  period  may  have  been,  that  their  testimony  would  at 
that  future  time  be  more  credible  than  now  to  the  multi- 
tude, and  be  less  apt  to  excite  jealousy  in  the  less  favored 
disciples  who  were  not  present.  In  regard  to  the  injunc- 
tion Luke  adds,  "  And  they  kept  that  saying  with  them- 
selves, questioning  one  with  another  what  the  rising  from 
the  dead  should  mean"  :  involved  in  this  perplexity  proba- 
bly, because  they  as  yet  held  to  the  idea  of  a  temporal 
kingdom,  and  were  unwilling  to  admit  the  thought  of  the 
death  of  their  Lord.  But  after  this  injunction  of  silence 
was  given,  the  disciples  asked  Jesus  the  following  ques- 
tion :  "  Why  then  say  the  scribes  that  Elias  must  first 
come  ?  "  The  connection  of  this  question  with  the  pre- 
vious injunction  of  silence  is  of  this  kind.  Elias  has  come 
from  heaven,  as  we  have  just  seen,  upon  the  mount.  The 
scribes  constantly  say,  that  Elias  will  re-appear  on  earth 
before  Messiah  comes,  and  that  he  will  prepare  the  people 
for  his  kingdom  ;  and  now  they  plead  his  non-appearance, 
as  a  reason  for  rejecting  thee.  Why  do  they  say  that 
Elias  must  first  come  ?  Is  it  not  true  ?  Why  then  may 
we  not  tell  this  vision,  and  assure  them  that  Elias  has 
come  ?  Is  he  to  come  again  in  a  more  public  and  solemn 
manner  ?  The  answer  of  Christ  is  to  this  effect ;  that  the 
scribes  have  erred,  in  concluding  that  the  prophetic  Elias 
that  was  to  come  is  literally  Elijah  the  Tishbite,  whom 
these  disciples  have  now  seen  on  the  mount  :  and  that, 
involved  in  this  error,  they  have  rejected  the  true  Elias, 
who  has  already  come  heralding  the  Messiah,  and  would 
in  like  manner  also  reject  and  condemn  him,  the  heralded 
Messiah.  "  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  them  :  (Matt.) 
Elias  truly  shall  first  come  and  restore  all  things.  But  I 
say  unto  you,  that  Elias  has  come  already,  and  they  knew 
him  not,  but  have  done  unto  him  whatsoever  they  listed  : 
likewise  also  shall  the  Son  of  Man  suffer  of  them.  Then 
the  disciples  understood  that  he  spake  to  them  of  John 
the  Baptist."  In  this  manner  was  the  glorious  scene  of 
the  mount  ended,  and  Jesus  and  the  three  came  down 
again,  to  unite  with  the  whole  band  of  the  disciples. 


The  Transfiguration.  141 


From  this  scene  of  the  mount  of  transfiguration,  we 
may  derive  the  following  lessons  of  practical  instruction. 

i.  It  assures  us  of  a  heavenly  glory  obtained  by  Jesus 
for  all  the  people  of  God,  to  which  we  should  aspire 
as  our  final  home.  At  that  hour  a  brief  foreshadowing 
of  the  heavenly  world  was  brought  down  to  the  mount, 
and  all  that  glory  centered  around  and  upon  Jesus  as 
its  Author  and  Source.  His  altered  visage  wore  the 
glory,  that  was  to  shine  forth  from  him  on  the  throne 
of  God.  Moses  and  Elias  came  down  from-  heaven, 
showing  that  they  had  existed  in  a  glorious  state  in 
heaven  since  they  left  the  world,  and  that  they  and  all 
believers,  who  looked  forward  in  preceding  ages  to  the 
coming  of  Christ  as  their  Saviour,  were,  resting  on  his 
decease  at  Jerusalem  as  the  foundation  of  their  accept- 
ance with  God.  Three  of  the  apostles  were  there  to 
witness  the  glory  of  that  Lord,  whom  they  were  follow- 
ing in  faith,  and  whom  they  were  to  proclaim  one  day 
to  the  wide  world,  as  the  Author  of  eternal  salvation. 
And  soon  around  all  and  over  all,  the  cloud  of  divine 
glory  rested,  and  the  voice  of  the  Eternal  Father  pro- 
nounced over  Jesus,  and  to  the  representatives  of  heaven 
and  earth,  '  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well 
pleased  :  hear  ye  him.' 

Who,  on  that  mountain  top,  could  doubt  that  there  is  a 
heavenly  glory  beyond  this  life  for  the  people  of  God, 
and  that  Jesus,  the  Son  of  the  Eternal  Father,  was  ap- 
pointed to  procure  it  for  them,  as  their  immediate  Head 
and  Lord?  But  the  glory  of  that  hour,  which  strength- 
ened Jesus  on  his  own  way  to  death  and  victory,  and 
which  set  him  forth  to  his  attendants  as  the  Hope  of 
Israel,  was  sealed  up  in  silence  to  the  hour  of  his  resur- 
rection. The  three  favored  apostles  pondered  the  vision, 
and  the  words  of  Christ  as  to  his  death  and  resurrection  ; 
but  no  man  on  earth,  not  any  of  their  fellow  apostles, 
heard  of  the  scene  till  after  it  was  fulfilled  in  the  kingdom 
of  God.  But  when  apostles,  having  attended  Jesus  till 
after  his  death  and  exodus  by  a  glorious  ascension  to  the 
throne,  went  forth  everywhere  to  preach  him  crucified,  as 


142  The  Transfiguration. 


the  Author  of  eternal  life,  this  scene  was  made  known  as 
among  the  evidences  he  left  that  he  had  gone  into  heaven, 
having  obtained  eternal  redemption  for  his  people.  Peter, 
the  apostle  most  prominent  in  that  scene  as  a  speaker,  has 
left  us  this  testimony  concerning  it  ;  when,  at  an  advanced 
period  of  life,  expecting  shortly  to  put  off  this  tabernacle, 
he  thus  exhorted  those  who  had  obtained  like  precious 
faith  through  the  righteousness  of  God  our  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ.  "  Brethren,  give  diligence  to  make  your  calling 
and  election  sure  :  for  so  an  entrance  shall  be  ministered 
unto  you  abundantly  into  the  everlasting  kingdom  of  our 
Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  For  we  have  not  fol- 
lowed cunningly  devised  fables,  when  we  made  known 
unto  you  the  pcyvver  and  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
but  were  eye-witnesses  of  his  majesty.  For  he  received 
from  God  the  Father  honor  and  glory,  when  there  came 
such  a  voice  to  him  from  the  excellent  glory,  This  is  my 
beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased.  And  this  voice 
which  came  from  heaven  we  heard,  when  we  were  with 
him  on  the  holy  mount." 

What  a  glorious  world  beyond  this  life  is  thus  opened 
to  our  faith  and  hope,  where  the  Eternal  Father  and  his 
Son  Jesus  Christ  shine  forth  as  its  fadeless  light,  and 
where  the  ransomed  of  all  ages  are  gathered  together  to 
dwell  before  the  cloudless  throne  in  joy  and  love  forever ! 
What  a  mercy  to  our  world,  that  lay  enwrapped  in  the 
shades  of  death  and  endless  night,  that  the  Son  of  God 
has  visited  it  from  on  high  ;  that,  by  his  decease  at  Jerusa- 
lem, he  has  parted  the  vail  of  eternity  and  opened  for  us 
sinners  a  wray  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  that  he  has 
caused  the  radiance  of  that  eternal  world  to  fall  on  us  to 
attract  our  hearts,  and  bidden  us  follow  him  on  the  way, 
that  we  may  find  our  everlasting  home  and  treasures  there 
with  him  and  his  Father.  Let  us  fix  the  eye  of  faith  and 
hope  intently  on  that  state  of  glory.  Let  us  seek  earnestly 
to  secure  within  it  our  final  dwelling.  Let  us  fear  lest  any 
of  us  seem  even  to  come  short  of  so  glorious  a  kingdom  ! 

From  this  scene  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  we  learn, 


The  Transfiguration.  143 


2.  That  when  the  duties  and  trials  which  we  are  to  en- 
counter on  the  way  to  heaven  press  heavily  on  our  minds, 
we  should  seek  relief  and  strength  in  prayer. 

Jesus  thus,  when  the  suffering  which  the  Father  had 
appointed  him  to  endure  at  Jerusalem  began  to  weigh 
sorely  on  his  mind  and  was  broached  by  him  to  his  disci- 
ples, betook  himself  to  prayer.  He  retires  apart  from  men, 
in  the  shades  of  night,  to  the  mountain  top,  to  pour  out  his 
soul  to  God  for  strength.  That  work  which  concerned 
the  glory  of  his  Father  above  and  the  salvation  of  the 
world  below,  and  which  rested  upon  him  to  achieve  so 
soon,  was  a  burden  he  sought  strength  to  bear.  And 
while  he  pleads  with  fervent  desires  for  strength  to  ac- 
complish his  task  and  secure  the  glorious  rewards  of  vic- 
tory, the  Father  hears ;  and  strengthens  his  heart  with 
foretastes  of  the  personal  glory  he  will  win,  and  the  joy 
he  will  occasion  the  ransomed,  by  his  decease  at  Jerusa- 
lem. The  mount  of  prayer  affords  an  antepast  of  heav- 
enly joy, — a  foretaste  of  his  glory  when,  as  the  well- 
beloved  Son  of  the  Father,  he  shall  ascend  with  the 
multitudes  of  his  saints  to  heaven  as  the  reward  of  his 
toils  and  sufferings. 

In  this  resort  to  prayer  he  has  set  us  an  example  where 
we  are  to  find  our  strength,  when  pressed  by  the  cares 
and  trials  that  we  encounter  on  our  path  to  heaven.  Like 
him,  we  are  to  betake  o.urselves  to  God  for  strength.  Be- 
fore him  who  appoints  us  our  burdens,  we  may  freely 
pour  out  our  fears  and  sorrows,  and  from  him  obtain  the 
help  and  grace  we  need.  He  has  all  the  resources  of  our 
strength  at  his  command.  He  can,  in  answer  to  our 
prayer,  grant  above  what  we  ask  or  think.  The  elements 
of  this  world  and  its  population  are  all  subject  to  his  con- 
trol. He  can  send  heavenly  messengers  to  us  with  their 
refreshing  ministry.  He  can  cause  the  brightness  of  his 
own  infinite  love  and  wisdom  and  power  to  pass  before 
us ;  he  can  enter  our  hearts  with  his  own  comforting 
Spirit,  and  sweeten  the  toils  and  sufferings  he  appoints  us 
with  foretastes  of  heavenly  joy. 


144  The  Transfiguration. 


Brethren,  let  us  learn  of  Jesus  where  to  look  for  our 
strength.  In  his  trials  he  retired  into  the  presence  of  his 
Father. 

Cold  mountains  and  the  midnight  air 
Witnessed  the  fervor  of  his  prayer." 

Ours  is  the  same  refuge,  in  duty,  in  trials  and  sufferings. 

When  storms  of  sorrow  round  us  sweep, 
And  scenes  of  anguish  make  us  weep  ; 
We'll  look  and  see  the  Saviour  there, 
And  humbly  bow,  like  him,  in  prayer. 

I  remark,  again, 

3.  The  foretastes  of  heavenly  joy  granted  on  earth  are 
temporary,  intended  not  to  take  the  place  of  the  duties  of 
life,  but  to  strengthen  us  in  their  performance. 

Peter  and  his  companions,  when  they  awoke  to  behold 
the  glory  of  their  Lord  and  of  his  heavenly  visitants,  and 
saw  the  mountain  top  illuminated  with  the  glory,  felt  that 
they  were  high  above  the  dark  world  below  and  its  cares ; 
that  they  were  on  the  mount  of  vision  ;  that  they  were  on 
the  verge  of  heaven  and  its  eternal  glories.  Emotions  of 
strange  wonder  and  exstatic  joy  fill  their  hearts.  They 
are  lost  as  in  a  pleasing  revery,  from  which  they  desire 
never  to  be  broken.  "  Master,"  exclaims  Peter, — as  if  he 
had  forgotten  every  care  and  duty  of  life,  and  the  very 
errand  of  his  Master  in  coming  to  the  mount, — "  Master, 
it  is  good  for  us  to  be  here  :  and  let  us  build  three  taber- 
nacles." Here  would  he  keep  a  perpetual  feast  with  his 
Lord  and  his  heavenly  visitors.  But  the  vision  was  in- 
tended only  as  a  transient  glimpse  of  the  glories  that  lie 
beyond  the  vail  of  time.  It  was  to  strengthen  for  the 
duties  and  trials  of  life  yet  remaining:  not  to  take  their 
place.  It  could  not  last.  Jesus  and  his  disciples  must 
leave  the  mount,  go  down  to  the  world  below,  and  set 
themselves  to  the  duties  and  the  conflicts  which  God  had 
appointed  them  on  their  way  to  heaven. 

So  is  it  with  believers  on  their  course.  Amid  their 
duties  and  trials,  it  is  their  privilege  to  draw  near  to  God 
and  refresh  their  hearts  with  the  joys  of  his  presence. 


The    Transfiguration.  145 


And  they  may  feel  at  times,  when  favored  most  with  the 
divine  presence,  as  if  they  would  forever  forsake  all  other 
cares  and  employments,  to  indulge  only  in  these  heavenly 
emotions  and  divine  joys.  They  are  on  the  mount  of  ex- 
static  bliss.  They  would  never  go  down  again  to  the 
cares  and  sorrows  of  earth.  But  not  such  are  the  ap- 
pointments of  heaven.  This  is  the  world  of  their  labors : 
that  of  their  eternal  rest  is  yet  to  come.  The  honor  of 
God,  the  welfare  of  their  race,  their  own  progress  in 
knowledge  and  holiness,  call  them  to  the  discharge  of 
active  and  laborious  duties,  and  to  the  endurance  of  many 
and  severe  trials.  Let  believers  learn  then  to  prize  their 
seasons  of  communion  with  God,  as  times  in  which  to 
gather  strength  and  refreshing  to  their  hearts  amid  their 
duties  and  trials,  not  as  substitutes  to  take  their  place,  to 
prepare  them  for  the  discharge  of  their  many  active  and 
passive  duties  of  piety  and  benevolence,  not  to  exalt 
them  above  these  duties. 

4.  The  voice  of  Jesus  calms  the  hearts  of  his  people 
when  they  are  overwhelmed  with  the  fearful  glories  of 
God. 

The  glories  of  the  divine  majesty  are  too  bright  for  the 
endurance  of  mortal  natures.  We  could  not  look  on  God 
and  live.  When  his  fearful  majesty  is  revealed  to  us  in  the 
thunder,  in  the  earthquake,  in  the  utterance  of  his  holy 
law,  in  the  threatenings  of  his  eternal  curse,  emotions  of 
terror  seize  our  hearts,  and  we  are  ready,  like  the  apos- 
tles, as  they  entered  the  cloud  and  heard  the  voice  of  the 
divine  presence,  to  fall  prostrate  in  awe  and  terror  before 
our  God.  But  Jesus  meets  the  fallen  and  trembling  as 
the  minister  of  grace,  bearing  upon  him  their  nature, 
touched  with  the  feeling  of  their  infirmities,  and  bids 
them  "  arise,  be  not  afraid."  He  lifts  them  up  from  their 
fears,  to  see  in  him,  God  reconciled,  to  hear  in  him,  God 
as  their  teacher,  to  follow  in  him,  God  as  their  example, 
and  to  find  in  him,  God  their  exceeding  great  and  eternal 
portion.  His  voice  allays  the  tempests  of  the  mind — and 
calms  the  troubled  waters  of  the  hearts — uttering  sweet 
promises  from  God,  of  forgiveness  and  eternal  life  in  his 

20 


146  The  Transfiguration. 


kingdom.  Wherever  his  voice  is  heard,  there  may  his 
disciples  follow  without  fear.  The  work,  for  which  he 
came  down  to  earth,  was  to  conduct  the  humble  and 
believing-  to  heaven  :  and  he,  who  is  the  well-beloved  Son 
of  the  Father  and  is  accepted  by  him,  and  strengthened 
by  him  in  this  work,  will  not  fail  to  complete  the  work 
and  to  see  all  his  obedient  followers  safe  through  all  their 
fears  and  sorrows.  Let  them  fear  not  then,  when  they 
hear  his  voice  and  follow  it, — though  he  call  them  up  into 
the  awful  presence  of  God,  though  he  lead  them  down  to 
fearful  conflicts  among  their  fellow  men.  Whenever  and 
wherever  he  leadeth  them  forth,  he  goeth  before  them  as 
their  Guide  and  Protector,  and  so  long  as  they  hear  his 
voice  and  follow  it — in  precept,  in  invitation,  in  encour- 
agement, or  in  warning — they  know  that  their  Heavenly 
Shepherd  is  nigh.  They  trust  in  his  care,  and  are  not 
afraid.  His  presence  quells  their  fears.  Their  hearts  are 
established  in  quietness  and  peace  on  the  everlasting  rock 
of  his  love. 

5.  They  who  follow  Christ  are  led  by  him  from  their 
errors  into  truth,  while  his  enemies  are  left  in  their  errors 
to  oppose  the  plans  of  God  and  perish. 

These  different  consequences,  which  arise  from  the  dif- 
ferent manner  in  which  Christ  is  treated,  are  clearly  ex- 
emplified in  the  case  of  the  disciples  as  they  descended 
with  Jesus  from  the  mount,  and  of  the  scribes  as  it  was 
represented  in  the  discourse  of  Jesus.  The  disciples,  it 
seems,  cherished  the  same  opinion  as  the  scribes  concern- 
ing the  coming  of  Elias:  the  opinion,  that  the  prophetic 
passage  in  Malachi,  IV  :  5,  which  represents  Elias  to  come 
to  prepare  the  way  of  the  Messiah,  referred  literally  to 
the  return  of  Elijah  the  Tishbite  to  the  earth,  and  not,  as 
a  prophetic  symbol,  to  a  new  prophet  coming  in  the  spirit 
and  power  of  Elijah — the  spirit  and  power  by  which  he 
brought  Israel  back  from  Baal  to  Jehovah — the  spirit  of 
repentance  and  reformation.  No  doubt  the  disciples  at 
this  time  saw  evidence  enough  to  convince  them  that 
Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  without  this  sign  of  Elias:  yet 
they  were  expecting  this  sign  also.  And  when  on  the 


T/ie  Transfiguration.  147 


mount  Elijah  appeared,  they  concluded,  no  doubt,  that 
they  had  seen  this  prophetical  signal,  and  were  prepared 
to  tell  the  unbelieving1,  even  the  scribes,  of  this  evidence. 
And  when  Jesus  enjoined  upon  them  utter  silence,  as  to  the 
whole  scene,  to  some  future  day,  the  wrong  opinion  they 
entertained  was  made  obvious  in  their  questions  to  Jesus. 
The  opportunity  was  thus  clearly  presented  to  Jesus  to 
make  known  to  them  their  error,  and  that  of  the  scribes 
in  regard  to  this  prophetic  mark  of  the  Messiah.  He 
kindly  instructs  them,  and  corrects  them  of  their  error  by 
making  known  to  them  the  truth.  Elias,  indeed,  must 
first  come:  but  not  the  translated  and  heavenly  Elijah. 
He  will  not  leave  the  glories  of  his  heavenly  state,  to  en- 
counter the  trials  of  earth  again  in  preaching  repentance. 
The  Elias  of  prophecy  has  already  come,  and  these  very 
scribes  who  pretend  to  demand  his  presence  have  rejected 
him  and  are  ready  to  condemn  me.  The  truth  was  now 
clear  and  obvious  to  their  minds.  They  saw  that  John 
the  Baptist  had  fulfilled  the  prophetic  character  of  Elias. 
And  this  new  signal,  in  harmony  with  the  many  others 
that  had  already  convinced  them,  added  new  strength  to 
their  faith.  They  go  forth  from  the  glory  of  the  mount, 
and  with  these  new  views  of  prophecy  imparted  to  them 
on  their  descent  by  their  teacher — to  cleave  to  Jesus 
with  increasing  faith,  and  to  follow  him  on  the  path  to 
heaven  with  new  courage  and  with  livelier  hopes.  While 
the  scribes  in  their  enmity,  refusing  to  hear  and  learn  the 
truth  from  his  lips,  still  cling  to  their  error,  and,  embold- 
ened by  it,  grow  more  hardened  in  their  opposition  to  the 
Saviour ;  and,  far  from  the  way  of  life,  fall  beneath  the 
curse  of  God,  and  perish  in  their  sins. 

Thus  is  it,  that  they  who  follow  Jesus  find,  by  his  in- 
struction and  teaching,  their  knowledge,  their  faith,  their 
hopes  increased  as  they  advance  towards  heaven,  while 
they  that  reject  him  and  refuse  the  light  and  aid  of  his 
instructions  sink  deeper  into  error,  doubt,  and  darkness 
on  their  way  to  eternity  ;  and  must  find  on  their  entrance 
into  that  world,  that  they  have  opposed  the  plans  adopted 
of  God  for  salvation — that  they  have  wandered  forever 


148  The  Transfiguration. 

from  Jesus  Christ,  the  only  source  of  forgiveness  and 
healing — and  must  perish  forever  beneath  the  weight  of 
remediless  guilt,  remorse,  despair,  and  anguish. 

My  friends,  if  you  would  enter  into  a  heaven  of  glor}T 
beyond  this  mortal  state  ;  if  you  would  have  a  refuge 
amid  the  ills  and  burdens  of  the  present  life;  if  you 
would  cheer  and  strengthen  yourselves  on  your  way, 
with  foretastes  of  the  joy  and  glory  to  come;  if  you 
would  hear  the  voice  of  a  Comforter  and  Almighty  Friend, 
to  quell  your  rising  fears  and  apprehensions  on  the  way  ; 
if  you  would  go  on  increasing  in  knowledge  and  love  and 
hope  and  joy  to  the  end  ;  look  to  Jesus,  the  beloved  Son 
of  God,  who  has  come  to  make  known  to  us  the  love  and 
grace  of  our  Heavenly  Father.  Follow  him,  who  by  his 
death  has  opened  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  believers, 
and  who  shines  as  their  Mediator  and  Lord  on  its  throne. 
Follow  him,  who  guides  his  obedient  people  through  this 
life  by  his  counsel,  and  at  life's  close  admits  them  with 
his  own  cheering  voice  into  glory . 


MAN'S    IGNORANCE    RESPECTING   HIS   FUTURE 
IN   THIS    LIFE. 

[A   BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.] 


ECCLESIASTES  VI :  12. 

WHO    KNOWETH    WHAT    IS    GOOD    FOR    MAN  IN  THIS    LIFE,  ALL  THE  DAYS  OF    HIS 
VAIN    LIFE,    WHICH    HE    SPENDETH    AS    A    SHADOW? 

WHAT  is  this  life  of  man  ?  How  short  and  hurried 
from  infancy  to  the  grave !  It  passes  like  the  shadow  of 
the  passing  cloud  that  flits  across  the  plain  and  dis- 
appears, leaving  no  trace  behind.  Vain  as  the  airy 
bubble  which,  as  its  rainbow  tints  of  glory  attract  the 
gaze,  is  gone.  Brief  days  and  few,  comprehend  it  all : 
and  these  are  often  days  of  empty  illusions,  and  hopes 
ending  in  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 
.  What  is  good  for  man  in  this  life?  Who  knoweth  ? 
Who  can  tell  what  schemes  for  happiness  he  will  have 
length  of  life  or  power  to  accomplish?  Who  can  tell 
what  schemes,  if  successful,  will  most  advance  his  tem- 
poral interests  ?  Who,  what  degree  of  temporal  pros- 
perity will  best  comport  with  his  spiritual  and  eternal 
interests  ?  Who  knoweth  these  things  ?  or  who  that  is 
ignorant  on  these  points,  can  know  what  is  in  reality 
good  for  man  ? 

The  question  of  Solomon  will  have  far  different  mean- 
ings attached  to  it,  accordingly  as  we  suppose  it  to  come 
from  the  lips  of  a  skeptic,  who  denies  the  existence  of 
God  and  a  future  state,  or  of  the  believer,  who  admits 
both.  From  the  skeptic,  the  question  would  imply  that 
man  passes  his  whole  existence  here  in  utter  ignorance 
of  any  good  that  is  worthy  of  his  pursuit,  dreaming  amid 
shadows  that  terminate  in  endless  night.  From  the  be- 
liever, that  man  is  ignorant,  not  of  a  good  worthy  of 
his  pursuit,  but  of  that  temporal  condition  in  life,  and 


1 50    Man 's  Ignorance  Respecting  Jiis  Future  in  tJiis  Life. 


those  temporal  schemes  which  will  be  truly  good  to  him, 
as  the  means  of  advancing  his  true  welfare  on  the  long 
line  of  his  endless  existence. 

This  is  the  thought,  which  will  now  occupy  our  atten- 
tion— that  man  is  ignorant  as  to  what  in  temporal  things 
is  best  for  his  welfare. 

Let  us  look  at  this  ignorance,  in  regard  to  its  nature,  its 
extent,  and  its  causes. 

I.  It  is  not  ignorance  as  to  the  intrinsic  nature  of  good 
and  evil.  Good  and  evil,  both  natural  and  moral,  are 
things  clearly  known  to  man.  Indeed,  the  distinctions 
between  right  and  wrong,  and  happiness  and  misery,  are 
among  the  earliest  lessons  he  acquires  in  life.  His  own 
nature  is  the  deep  seat  of  this  knowledge.  His  own 
experience  writes  the  lesson  in  plain  and  indelible  char- 
acters. His  observation  of  his  fellow  men  ever  confirms 
the  truth  of  his  own  experiences. 

Nor  again,  is  he  necessarily  ignorant  of  the  great  object 
to  which  it  is  good  to  devote  this  life,  or  what  are  truly 
good  and  useful  rules  of  living.  The  Creator  has  made 
known  enough  of.  himself  and  the  laws  and  plans  of  his 
righteous  government,  to  point  out  to  man  the  true  and 
only  path  to  a  happy  life  and  glorious  immortality  in  his 
kingdom.  In  the  works  of  creation  he  sets  forth  his 
eternal  power  and  Godhead,  so  as  to  leave  without  the 
excuse  of  ignorance  all  who  refuse  to  glorify  him  as  God. 
In  the  riches  of  his  forbearing  and  compassionate  provi- 
dence towards  man,  he  calls  upon  him  to  return  to  him  in 
repentance,  and  not  waste  these  days  of  forbearance  in 
hardening  .his  heart  and  aggravating  his  final  doom. 
Knowledge  therefore  of  the  true  object  of  the  present 
life  is  published  abroad  by  the  Creator  through  his  works, 
even  among  the  very  heathen.  Who  then  that  has  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  Gospel,  and  hears  God  in  Christ 
expressly  calling  upon  him  to  pursue  the  path  that  leads 
to  virtue  and  eternal  glory,  can  claim  ignorance  of  what 
object  and  rules  of  action  are  good  for  man  ? 

But  the  ignorance  justly  attributable  to  man  in  regard 
to  the  good  or  evil  of  the  present  life,  relates  simply  to  the 


M  tin's  Ignorance  Respecting  his  Future  in  this  L  ife.     1 5  I 


particulars  of  his  temporal  lot,  as  to  what  of  good  or 
evil  will  accrue  to  him  from  any  merely  temporal  pursuit 
or  condition.  In  managing  his  temporal  affairs,  and  at- 
tempting to  elevate  his  worldly  estate,  he  cannot  foresee 
what  the  precise  and  final  result  to  himself  will  be — 
whether  happy  or  disastrous.  He  is  ignorant  therefore 
of  what,  in  the  matters  of  the  present  life,  is  best  for  him. 
He  knoweth  not  whether  this  or  that  course  will  prove 
prosperous,  or  whether  both  alike  will  not  be  adverse. 

II.  Let  us  now  look  over  this  field  of  his  ignorance,  and 
see  its  extent — how  much  there  is  here  to  affect  the  wel- 
fare of  man,  of  the  precise  result  of  which  he  is  yet  in 
complete  ignorance.  This  pall  of  ignorance  covers  this 
whole  temporal  scene — all  the  days  of  this  vain  life — this 
life,  through  whose  mazes  man  passes  not  only  with  the 
rapidity,  but  in  the  darkness  of  "  a  shadow."  From 
infancy  to  the  grave,  each  step  is  taken  by  him  in  ignor- 
ance of  precisely  the  onward  and  far  stretching  results. 

But  let  us  analyze,  and  look  more  distinctly  at,  the  sepa- 
rate things  in  this  great  field  of  our  temporal  life,  which 
are  to  affect  our  welfare, — and  of  the  precise  result  .of 
which,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  we  are  ignorant. 

Man  knoweth  not,  I  observe,  when  he  engages  in  any 
particular  temporal  scheme,  whether  he  will  meet  with 
success  in  it  or  defeat.  He  may  indeed  bring  to  his  aid 
the  wisdom  and  experience  of  others,  as  well  as  his  own, 
in  devising  his  schemes;  and  there  may  appear  to  him 
that  reasonable  prospect  of  success,  which  is  necessary 
to  keep  hope  alive  and  stir  up  to  industry.  Yet  for 
the  actual  result  he  must  wait  in  suspense.  He  knows 
not  whether  he  will  be  competent  to  cope  with  every 
obstacle  that  may  rise  up  in  his  path.  Defeat  may  over- 
take the  wisest  plans.  The  activity  of  others  may  fore- 
close the  avenues  to  success.  Unexpected  dispensations 
of  providence  withdraw  the  means.  The  heart  faint ;  the 
health  decline  ;  life  itself  close,  in  the  midst  of  the  race. 

Man  knoweth  not  again,  whether  any  particular  instance 
of  temporal  success  will  promote  or  hinder  his  general 
prosperity  in  life.  He  knows  indeed,  that  success  in 


152    Man  s  Ignorance  Respecting  his  Future  in  this  Life. 


obtaining-  any  valuable  object  is  to  be  put  down,  on  the 
balance  sheet  of  life,  as  an  item  on  the  side  of  prosperity  ; 
and  that  the  sum  total  that  is  gained  and  kept  during  the 
progress  of  life,  is  to  decide  whether  that  life  on  the  whole 
has  been  one  of  temporal  prosperity  or  adversity.  But 
whether  prosperity  in  one  thing,  and  at  one  particular 
period  in  life,  will  advance  his  prosperity  m  all  the  days 
of  this  life,  how  can  he  tell  ?  That  which  he  gains  he 
may  not  be  able  to  keep,  and  partial  success  at  one  time 
may  hinder  success  in  other  things  and  at  other  periods 
of  life.  The  friends  you  gain,  the  property  you  acquire, 
the  reputation  awarded  you,  in  early  life,  may  prove  not 
the  prospering  gale  and  expanding  sheet  that  is  to  bear 
your  bark  onward  in  safety  to  the  port,  but  the  syren 
song  of  the  tempter,  or  the  dead  weights  of  care,  or  the 
fierce  winds  of  passion,  that  set  you  on  the  backward 
current,  and  fill  the  voyage  of  life  with  disappointment 
and  disaster. 

Still  again,  man  knoweth  not  whether  any  degree  of 
temporal  prosperity  he  may  acquire  will  prove  a  good,  in 
its  results  on  his  moral  and  spiritual  interests.  In  both 
temporal  prosperity  and  adversity  the  voice  of  God  may  be 
heard  and  heeded,  or,  on  the  contrary,  the  voice  of  human 
passions.  Calls  to  duty  may  be  heard  in  them,  or  solici- 
tations to  sin.  Who  then  knoweth  beforehand  what  in 
this  life  will  prove  good  for  him,  whether  prosperity  or 
adversity  will  most  favor  him,  in  relation  to  a  moral  and 
religious  life — and  the  endless  life  that  is  to  come.  Pros- 
perity may  speak  of  the  kindness  of  God,  of  the  duty  of 
acting  as  his  steward,  and  of  the  opportunities,  fair  and 
multiplied,  of  doing  good  :  yet  to  weak  and  erring  man,  it 
may  but  bring  pride  and  idleness  and  sin,  fostering  the 
animal  passions  in  their  growth,  and  deadening  the  reli- 
gious sensibilities  of  the  heart.  How  many,  who  walked 
humbly  and  carefully  in  their  early  days,  when  exalted 
by  prosperity  have  fallen  into  profligacy  and  vice,  and 
ruined  their  peace  and  their  hopes  for  eternity  !  Adver- 
sity too  may  remind  man  of  his  feebleness,  his  guilt  and 
unworthiness,  and  show  him  the  correcting  hand  of  God 


Man 's  Ignorance  Respecting  Jiis  Future  in  tJiis  Life.     153 


that  seeks  to  advance  his  holiness ;  and  yet,  to  weak  and 
selfish  man,  it  may  prove  but  the  occasion  of  festering- 
rebellion  and  murmurings  of  heart  against  God,  and  of 
envy,  malice,  and  fraud  towards  the  prosperous  among 
men.  Who  then  knoweth  what  particular  temporal  lot 
is  best — what  will  prove  truly  good  to  him  on  the  long 
line  of  endless  years  which  are  before  him,  and  to  which 
this  life  is  but  the  stepping-stone  and  entrance — what  will 
best  secure  his  love  and  moral  obedience  towards  God, 
and  fit  and  ripen  his  spirit  for  the  glories  of  heaven  ? 

III.  Let  us  now  trace  this  ignorance  of  man  to  its 
causes. 

Man,  however  little  he  may  think  of  it,  while  daily 
busied  on  the  theater  and  in  the  pursuits  of  this  life,  is 
inseparably  connected  with  the  providence  of  God,  and 
his  very  being  interwoven  into  the  deep  plans  of  the 
Creator.  The  springs  of  his  welfare  lie  beyond  himself, 
beyond  the  created  universe  around  him, — in  the  good 
pleasure  and  gracious  working  of  the  Almighty.  His 
ignorance  therefore  of  what  is  best  for  him  in  this  scene 
of  earthly  providences,  may  be  traced  to  three  causes  : — to 
the  imperfection  and  weakness  of  his  own  nature  ;  to  the 
complicate  means  and  influences  of  divine  providence 
surrounding  him,  that  bear  on  his  welfare ;  and  to  the 
ability  of  God,  by  the  presence  or  withdrawal  of  his 
Spirit,  to  render  at  will  all  earthly  conditions  alike  the 
means  of  good  or  evil,  a  blessing  or  a  curse. 

Man  is  a  creature  limited  and  weak.  His  views,  feel- 
ings and  purposes  are  continually  exposed  to  change.  He 
cannot  therefore  build  on  his  present  self  the  calculations 
of  entire  certainty.  He  cannot  see,  from  what  he  now  is, 
precisely  what  he  will  be  in  the  future,  or  tell  what  may 
then  be  the  effect  of  things  upon  him,  from  the  manner  in 
which  they  affect  him  now.  That  which  pleases  him  to- 
day, may  not  on  the  morrow.  That  which  benefits  him 
to-day,  may  lose  its  influence  upon  him  to-morrow.  That 
which  meets  him  harmless  now,  may  tempt  him  to  evil 
then.  His  own  being,  which  is  weaving  along  this  woof 
of  life,  by  its  weakness,  its  fickleness,  its  changes,  thus 

21 


154    Mans  Ignorance  Respecting  Jiis  /'///// ;v  ///  tJiis  Life. 


baffles  his  calculations  of  the  future.  His  own  being,  that 
is  subject  to  the  plans  of  providence,  does  not  remain 
that  one  fixed  thing,  that  the  same  external  things  should 
forever  have  upon  it  one  and  the  same  effect.  Here  then 
is  one  source  of  his  ignorance  of  good  in  this  life.  He  is 
himself  too  variable  a  quantity  to  be  always  affected  alike 
by  the  same  things.  He  cannot  therefore  calculate  the 
effect  that  the  varying  conditions  of  life  will  have  upon 
him,  even  should  he  have  power  to  foretell  what  those 
conditions  shall  be. 

Again,  the  complicate  nature  of  the  means  and  influ- 
ences that  providence  employs  to  bear  on  his  welfare,  is 
another  source  of  this  ignorance.  In  this  vast  earthly 
scene  of  human  life,  how  many  things,  how  various 
beyond  all  human  computation,  are  influencing  the  feel- 
ings and  working  on  the  destiny  of  man.  His  animal 
constitution,  with  all  its  parts  and  propensities  ;  his  men- 
tal, with  all  its  powers  and  faculties  ;  his  moral,  with  all 
its  varied  sensibilities,  constitute  a  little  world  of  causes 
and  influences  that  bear  mutually  on  one  another  and  con- 
stantly on  his  welfare.  The  many  objects  and  varying 
scenes  of  the  natural  world,  and  the  varied  influences 
that  come  up  to  him  from  the  world  of  his  fellow-crea- 
tures, all  conspire  to  work  upon  him  for  good  or  evil. 
Here  then  are  causes  constantly  affecting  his  well-being, 
too  numerous  and  complicate  for  his  limited  mind  to 
comprehend  fully,  and  accurately  compute.  How  then 
shall  he  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  precise  results  to 
himself  in  the  future,  from  their  causes  ?  What  his  earthly 
condition  will  be  on  the  morrow,  or  how  that  condition 
will  affect  his  welfare,  are  questions  involved  in  such  an 
intricate  maze  of  causes  and  effects,  that  no  reasoning  on 
his  part  from  cause  to  effect  can  solve  the  problem.  They 
can  be  known  beforehand  only  to  that  omniscient  One, 
who  guides  the  illimitable  means  of  his  providence  at 
will.  How  then  can  man,  involved  in  this  complicate 
maze  of  providence,  tell  what  particular  earthly  condi- 
tion will  corne  to  him  on  the  morrow,  or  know  whether 


Mans  Ignorance  Respecting  his  Future  in  this  Life.     155 


his   lot   to-day    will   work   to   him    for  good  or  ill  in    the 
future  ? 

But  still  further,  the  mind  and  will  of  God  as  to  final 
results  are  not  known  from  the  particular  outward  lot  he 
assigns  to  man.  He  can  employ  at  will  the  same  earthly 
providences  in  kind,  both  for  good  or  evil.  His  plan  is  to 
constitute  this  life  a  scene  of  discipline  for  the  moral  trial 
of  men  and  their  training  for  another  life.  He  employs 
the  temporal  gifts  and  bounties  of  his  providence,  to  sup- 
port and  comfort  man  on  his  way  indeed,  yet  not  as  the 
end,  but  as  a  means  in  subordination  to  the  higher  end  of 
carrying  forward  a  plan  of  moral  government  and 
redemption,  which  is  to  issue  in  calling  the  obedient  and 
faithful  to  eternal  salvation  and  glory.  No  man  knoweth 
then  good  or  evil  from  God's  distribution  or  withdrawal 
of  merely  earthly  gifts.  For,  by  means  of  the  spiritual 
influences  he  employs  through  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  a  future  state,  and  the  power  of  his  own 
Spirit,  he  can  turn  the  same  outward  providences,  which, 
through  the  perversion  of  man,  become  occasions  of 
moral  evil  and  ruin,  into  means  of  spiritual  obedience  and 
holiness.  The  good  or  evil  accruing  to  man  from  earthly 
things  can  be  truly  estimated,  only  from  the  spiritual 
and  eternal  results  which  they  are  made  to  work  within 
him— whether  their  effect  is  to  bring  his  soul  to  the  love, 
service  and  enjoyment  of  God,  or  to  draw  it  away  from 
God  into  the  evils  of  sin,  self-reproach  and  malice.  God 
therefore  is  able  to  confound  all  human  calculations,  by 
turning  any  temporal  condition  of  man  into  a  good  or  an 
evil,  a  blessing  or  a  curse.  He  can  impart  or  he  can  with- 
hold his  Spirit,  and  in  this  way  turn  the  issue.  He  can 
make  all  his  providential  dealings  work  together  for  good 
to  them  that  love  him,  who  are  called  according  to  his 
plan  and  purpose.  He  can  make  all  work  together  for  ill 
to  them  that  hate  him,  and  are  rejected.  How  then  shall 
man  know  good  or  evil  from  merely  outward  and  tem- 
poral providences  ?  He  must  seek  his  good  from  God 
himself,  and  not  from  his  gifts.  He  must  wait  on  God 
for  the  development  of  his  hidden  counsels  of  grace.  He 


1 56    Mans  Ignorance  Respecting  his  Future  in  this  Life. 

must  solve  the  question  of  good  or  evil  to  himself  in  this 
life,  by  waiting- on  God  for  his  decisions  of  grace  or  judg- 
ment, of  eternal  life  or  death. 

If  then  we  consider  man  as  subject  to  the  deep  plans  of 
infinite  wisdom,  how  weak  and  changeable  a  being  he  is, 
how  many  and  complicate  causes  and  influences  in  the 
universe  around  him  bear  on  his  welfare,  and  how  able 
God  is  to  overrule  every  earthly  state  and  condition  for 
good  or  evil  at  his  pleasure,  is  it  any  wonder  that  man 
should  be  ever  ignorant,  in  his  progress  through  life,  of 
'  what  earthly  lot  is  best  for  his  welfare  ? 

We  may  derive  from  this  subject  some  lessons  of  prac- 
tical wisdom. 

1.  Let  then  your  ignorance  in  regard  to  the  things  of 
this  life,  teach   you   moderation  in   your  worldly  schemes 
and  pursuits.     You  are  not  your  own  lords  and   masters 
in  the  creation.     There  is  an  infinitely  greater  and  wiser 
being  over  you,  who  has  linked  you  to  the  plans  of  his 
own   providence,   and    is   watching  over   your   interests. 
Be  not  rash  and  precipitate  in  your  plans.     Be  not  over 
confident  in  your  ability  to  command  success.     Be  not 
over  eager  in  your  expectations  from  the   world.     How 
often  is  the  folly  of  this  excessive  confidence  and  eager- 
ness in  the  pursuit  of  worldly  good,  reproved  in  the  after 
revelations  of  providence.     The   men   guilty  of  it,  think 
the  objects  they  seek  are  secure.     As  they  rush  forward 
in  the  chase,  the  treasures  they  covet  float  before  them 
as  realities :  the  way  to  them   seems  clear ;  the  vision  of 
their  glory  is  bright :  the  heart  expands  with  large  hopes 
of  coming  joy.     How  does  this  over  eagerness  defeat  the 
happiness  and  welfare  of  man.     It  unfits  him  for  either 
disappointment  or  success.     It  gives  to  him,  in  disappoint- 
ment, the  heaviest  pangs  of  wounded  pride  and  blasted 
hopes.      It   renders  success  a   curse,   which   ministers  to 
that  lust  of  the  world  and  pride  of  life  which  separate 
him  from  the  love  of  his  Father  in  heaven. 

2.  Again,  let  this  ignorance  of  what  is  best  for  you  in 
this  temporal  life,  teach  you  submission  to  the  allotments 
of  providence.      Your    Heavenly   Father  knoweth   what 


Mans  Ignorance  Respecting  Jiis  Future  in  t/iis  Life.     157 


are  your  wants  and  necessities,  and  what  is  best  for  your 
welfare  ;  and  can  and  will  make  all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  those  who  in  love  entrust  themselves  to  his 
care.  Why  then  should  you,  in  your  blindness,  vainly 
seek  to  assume  the  supreme  disposal  to  your  own  hands, 
and  refuse  submission  ?  To  trust  in  his  care,  to  rest  in 
his  love,  to  feel  quiet  in  the  thought  that  he  seeks  in 
every  lot  he  appoints  us  our  best  good,  is  itself  a  spirit- 
ual treasure  of  peace  and  joy,  richer  far  than  any  worldly 
inheritance  can  give.  Why  refuse  submission  ?  Do  you 
allow  yourself,  in  your  blindness,  to  feel  dissatisfied  with 
his  allotment,  and  to  think  that  you  can  manage  better 
than  he  ?  But  that  is  to  set  yourself  at  known  variance 
with  God,  which  is  a  greater  evil  than  any  earthly  priva- 
tion. That  is  to  fill  your  hearts  with  the  spiritual  evils 
of  discontent,  anxiety,  covetousness,  envy,  hatred, — for 
which  no  earthly  lot  can  compensate. 

3.  Again  ;  let  your  ignorance  of  what  is  best  for  you 
in  your  earthly  allotment,  teach  you  to  devote  yourselves 
principally  to  the  known  duties  of  life.  In  pursuing  the 
things  of  the  world,  we  may  justly  feel  doubtful  whether* 
we  shall  gain  them,  or  whether,  if  gained,  they  will  prove 
salutary  or  hurtful.  But  on  the  path  of  known  duty  to 
God  and  man,  what  is  there  to  mislead  or  betray?  or  who 
shall  harm  us,  while  following  that  which  we  know  to  be 
good  ?  For  the  path  of  known  duty  is  ever  the  path  of 
safety.  Our  chief  business  in  this  life  then,  is  with  our 
duties :  not  with  our  own  pleasures,  profits,  or  honors. 
These  we  may  well  leave  to  the  disposal  of  God,  while 
we  seek,  first  of  all,  to  serve  him  in  his  kingdom  and  fol- 
low him  in  his  righteousness. 

Our  duties  call  us  to  the  pursuit  of  noble  and  useful 
ends :  to  labor  for  the  right,  the  good,  the  true,  among 
men  and  before  God.  Whether  we  succeed  or  not  to 
accomplish  much  in  them  for  our  God  and  our  generation, 
we  shall,  at  least,  expand  and  cheer  our  own  hearts  with 
the  sweet  affections  of  charity,  and  carry  along  with  us 
the  approving  testimony  of  God  and  our  own  conscience. 
On  this  course,  if  he  cheer  us  with  his  earthly  gifts  and 


158    Man  s  Ignorance  Respecting  Jiis  Future  in  this  Life. 


bounties,  they  will  raise  our  hearts  to  him  in  thankful- 
ness ;  if  he  withdraw  our  comforts,  and  smite  us  with 
earthly  sorrows,  we  will  take  with  patience  the  chastise- 
ment of  his  faithful  love  !  On  this  course,  we  enter  into 
sweet  fellowship  with  God  in  his  kingdom  and  righteous- 
ness, and  our  hearts  are  linked  to  his  in  the  bonds  of  unity 
and  love  unfailing. 

Finally,  let  your  ignorance  of  good  in  this  temporal 
life  lead  you  while  passing  through  it,  to  secure  an  eter- 
nal life  with  God  in  heaven.  Amid  the  darkness  and 
uncertainties  of  this  temporal  state,  all  is  not  dark.  The 
way  to  secure  an  eternal  life  with  God  in  heaven  is  made 
known  and  published.  We  have  a  sure  word  of  proph- 
ecy from  God  himself,  revealing  to  us  the  unfading  glories 
of  a  heavenly  state  beyond  this  life.  Jesus  Christ  has 
come,  with  signs  of  power  before  eye-witnesses  of  his  ma- 
jesty, and  been  accredited  with  a  voice  from  heaven  as 
the  Beloved  Son  of  the  Father, — bringing  with  him  the 
promise  of  grace  and  eternal  life  to  believers. 

Here  then  is  a  light  shining  upon  us  in  our  darkness ; 
a  light  from  the  heavenly  world  ;  a  light  that  marks  out 
to  us  the  way  to  reach  its  glories.  The  highway  of  life 
is  the  plain  way  of  holiness.  The  wayfarer  that  travels 
it,  however  simple,  need  not  err.  The  ransomed  of  the 
Lord,  in  every  age,  return  upon  it  from  all  their  wander- 
ings, and  come  with  joy  to  the  heavenly  Zion. 

We  do  well  therefore  to  look  beyond  the  cares  and 
anxieties  of  this  uncertain  life  to  an  eternal  life  with  God 
in  heaven,  and  to  seek  for  ourselves,  in  the  forgiving  and 
sanctifying  grace  which  the  Gospel  offers,  an  inheritance 
in  its  pure  and  unfading  happiness.  Here,  in  the  unfailing 
truth  of  God  in  the  Gospel,  we  know  our  footing  is  sure. 
Here  we  build  our  happiness  on  the  Rock  of  Ages.  Here 
we  enter  into  the  knowledge  and  love  of  God  and  his 
Son  Jesus  Christ,  whom  to  know  and  love  is  the  very 
ingredient  and  principle  of  life  eternal.  The  day  of  eter- 
nal joy  already  dawns  within  our  hearts.  The  day-star 
of  hope  rises  there,  the  harbinger  of  eternal  rest.  This 
is  to  make  the  true  and  proper  use  of  the  present  life. 


Ignorance  Respecting  Jiis  Future  in  this  Life.     159 


This  is  to  render  our  passage  through  its  vanities  and  flit- 
ting shadows,  a  cheering  pilgrimage  to  a  better  land. 
This  opens  before  us  at  our  journey's  end  the  portals  of 
heaven,  and  gives  us  an  entrance  and  a  welcome  into  the 
eternal  house  of  our  Father  above. 

These  lessons  of  practical  wisdom  I  would  set  before 
you, — Beloved  Pupils  and  Friends, — as  my  last  and  part- 
ing counsel.  They  are  derived  from  that  ignorance  of 
good  in  your  earthly  lot  which  ever  accompanies  you  in 
this  life. 

They  have  been  inculcated  upon  you  by  your  past  ex- 
perience. From  infancy  to  this  hour,  as  you  have  advan- 
ced along  the  pathway  of  life,  you  have  been  learning  the 
incompetency  of  this  world  to  form  your  satisfying  por- 
tion of  joy,  and  that,  beyond  the  parents  and  kind  friends 
around  you,  that  have  helped  your  progress,  there  is  a 
God  whose  providence  presides  over  this  whole  scene, 
and  calls  you  to  seek  your  happiness  in  his  love  and  ser- 
vice. Have  no  mistakes,  no  sins,  no  sorrows,  revealed  to 
you  your  incompetence  and  danger?  Have  no  deaths 
of  once  merry  companions  shown  you  your  dependence  ?- 
The  Gospel, — has  it  not  been  a  treasure  at  your  side,  to 
tell  you  of  the  love  of  God  in  Christ,  and  win  you  to  his 
heart  and  care  ? 

These  precepts  of  wisdom  are  strongly  inculcated  upon 
you  at  this  hour,  as  you  stand  on  the  threshold  of  this 
brief  home  of  your  preparatory  studies,  about  to  separate 
from  your  instructors  and  each  other,  it  may  be  forever. 
You  now  look  out  on  the  untrod  and  unknown  paths  be- 
fore you.  Shall  your  way  through  this  busy  life  be  pros- 
perous or  adverse?  The  darkness  that  lies  over,  and 
conceals  from  you  your  future  lot,  bids  you  be  thoughtful 
and  not  rash ;  to  rely  not  on  your  own  heart,  but  on  the 
wisdom  that  cometh  from  above. 

The  secret  of  a  happy  life  is  easily  told  :  a  sound  mind 
and  body  ;  earthly  passions  subdued ;  reconciliation  to 
God  ;  useful  employment  among  men  ;  and  hope,  stretch- 
ing its  cheering,  animating  vision  onward  to  eternity. 


160    Mans  Ignorance  Respecting  his  Future  in  this  Life. 


This  is  the  solution  furnished  by  experience  ;  embodied 
in  precepts  of  wisdom. 

Adopt  them  as  your  maxims  of  life.  Go  out  from  us, 
not  to  inflame  your  hearts  with  the  ambition,  the  covet- 
ousness,  the  sensuality  of  the  world.  Go  out,  humbly 
and  confidently  entrusting  the  disposal  of  your  lot  to  the 
decisions  of  an  all-wise  Creator.  Go  out,  to  serve  God 
and  your  generation  in  some  department  of  useful  action. 
Go  forth  to  seek,  as  pilgrims  through  this  life,  your  richest 
treasures  and  joys  with  God  and  Christ  in  Heaven. 

Make  these  the  guiding  principles  of  your  lives,  and 
you  will  be  truly  wise — wise  unto  salvation.  Without 
them,  this  life  will  indeed  be  vain.  All  its  most  splendid 
visions  of  happiness  will  be  but  illusions  to  sicken  with 
disappointment,  to  lead  onward  to  stranding  on  the  rocks 
of  sin  and  vice  and  death.  Its  hurried  progress  will  be 
the  shadowy  cloud  gathering  to  its  bosom  the  elements 
of  an  eternal  night  of  tempest  and  storm  beyond  this 
horizon  of  hope. 

With  these  words  of  counsel,  I  bid  you,  in  my  own 
behalf  and  that  of  my  associates  in  office, — Farewell. 


NO    CONTINUING   CITY  HERE. 


HEBREWS  XIII:  14. 
HERE  HAVE  WE  NO  CONTINUING  CITY. 

THE  period  was  now  approaching-  in  which  Jerusalem 
—the  city  of  the  Hebrews — the  great  metropolis  built  by 
their  fathers,  and  ever  their  pride  and  joy,  was,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  prediction  of  the  Saviour,  to  be  laid  waste. 
They  were  to  leave  their  possessions  and  homes,  and  flee, 
as  the  Saviour  had  directed  them,  into  the  mountains  ;  or, 
if  they  were  inhabitants  of  other  cities,  were  to  sympa- 
thize with  their  brethren  who  should  thus  suffer.  The 
apostle  reminds  them  in  these  circumstances  of  trial,  that 
they  were  not  to  consider  any  residence  on  earth  as 
designed  for  permanence.  They  mig-ht  grieve  at  the  ruin 
of  their  beloved  city  ;  but  they  ought  not  to  be  immode- 
rately attached  to  the  place  that  had  served  as  a  home  to 
them  and  their  fathers,  because  no  residence  on  earth  was 
intended  to  be  the  permanent  dwelling  of  men.  No  city 
on  earth  could  they  call  '  a  continuing  city  '  ;  for  they 
could  dwell  in  none  but  a  few  years  before  they  entered 
into  eternity. 

The  instruction  of  the  apostle  is  as  applicable  to  us,  as 
it  was  originally  to  the  afflicted  Hebrews  ;  and  we  need 
as  much  reminding  as  did  they — if  not  for  consolation 
especially  under  expected  trials,  yet  for  a  spiritual  im- 
provement of  our  privileges — that  we  have  upon  earth  no 
continuing  city.  This  truth,  at  all  times  momentous, 
deserves  peculiarly  our  consideration,  at  the  season  when 
we  have  just  bidden  adieu  to  another  year  of  our  lives, 
and  are  greeting  a  new  one,  with  its  uncertain  prospects. 

22 


1 62  No  Continuing  City  Here. 


Let  us,  then,  enter  with  seriousness  into  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  fact,  that  the  world  is  not  our  permanent  dwell- 
ing. The  certainty  we  feel  respecting  it  is  derived  from 
the  evidence  we  possess  of  our  own  approaching  deaths, 
which  will  remove  us  out  of  the  world,  and  the  evidence 
we  also  have  that  our  being  will  still  continue  after  death 
for  an  eternity.  From  these  sources  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed, from  childhood,  to  consider  the  fact,  whenever  it 
has  recurred  to  our  minds,  as  certain  beyond  all  question, 
that  our  dwelling  on  earth  has  no  permanence  compared 
with  the  eternity  of  our  being.  I  shall  say  nothing,  there- 
fore, to  establish  a  fact  of  which  we  all  feel  a  perfect 
moral  certainty  ;  but  shall  take  advantage  of  the  mora. 
certainty  we  all  feel  about  it,  to  speak— 

I.  Respecting  some  means  that  are  calculated  constantly 
to  remind  us  of  the  fact ; 

II.  Respecting  some  evidences  of  our  great  blindness  to 
the  fact ;  and, 

III.  Respecting  some  practical  results  we  should  derive 
from  the  fact,  that  '  here  we  have  no  continuing  city.' 

I.  I  am,  first,  to  mention  some  means  that  are  adapted 
constantly  to  remind  us  that  we  have  no  permanent  abode 
on  earth. 

We  have  such  a  means,  then,  in  the  fact  that  we  have 
received  our  privileges  from  those  who  have  already  left  the 
world.  Almost  all  our  privileges  are  associated  thus  with 
the  mortality  of  others,  who  have  been  instrumental  in 
conveying  them  over  to  our  possession.  Other  men  have 
labored  here  before  us  :  we  have  entered  into  their  labors. 
In  the  city  of  our  residence,  we  are  always  walking  amidst 
the  monuments  of  preceding  generations — the  works  of 
immortal  beings,  who,  as  strangers  here  before  us,  tarried 
but  for  a  day.  The  houses  we  inhabit,  the  streets  we 
walk,  the  sanctuaries  we  frequent,  the  Scriptures  of  truth, 
all  bespeak  to  us  the  agency  of  other  beings  who  have 
been  on  earth  before  us  ;  who  took  up  in  it  no  settled 
abode  ;  who  quickly  passed  through  it  to  eternity.  All 
our  privileges  are  thus  put  into  our  hands,  with  the  loud 
language  of  the  dead  to  us  for  monition,  that  we  do  not 


No  Continuing  City  Here.  163 


take  them  into  permanent  possession.  Everywhere,  then, 
in  the  city  of  our  residence  on  earth,  are  such  mementos, 
to  remind  us  constantly  how  short  is  to  be  our  dwelling* 
here. 

We  have  such  a  memento,  again,  in  the  fact  that  others, 
who  have  been  sharing  with  us  in  our  privileges,  are  constantly 
leaving  the  world.  They  who  dwell  with  us  in  the  city  of 
our  residence  on  earth — beings  of  immortality — are  con- 
stantly bidding  us  adieu,  and  entering  into  eternity.  All 
our  privileges  thus  become  associated  with  the  memory 
of  former  companions,  who  once  had  their  abode  below. 
They  dwelt  with  us  but  a  few  days  ;  they  scarcely  made 
themselves  known  to  us,  when  they  gave  the  farewell 
look,  pressed  the  parting  hand,  bade  adieu,  and  entered 
on  an  abode  in  eternity — the  tolling  bell,  the  mournful 
procession,  the  grave  of  their  relics,  the  erected  monu- 
ment, signalized  their  departure  ; — and  now  all  around  the 
city  of  our  abode  are  the  traces  of  their  former  presence, 
reminding  us  of  our  having  no  continuing  residence  here. 
We  look  back  at  the  days  they  passed  with  us  before  they 
entered  into  eternity,  and  they  appear  to  us  but  an  hand-- 
breadth ;  and,  from  their  dwelling  in  eternity,  we  seem  to 
hear  them  say,  as  we  miss  them  from  the  scenes  in  which 
they  once  mingled  with  us,  that  these  are  scenes  where 
pilgrims  to  eternity  tarry  but  a  day.  When  in  the  habi- 
tations where  they  once  dwelt  with  us,  or  the  streets 
where  they  walked  with  us,  or  the  sanctuary  to  which 
they  went  with  us  in  company,  or  at  the  mercy  seat 
where  they  once  bent  with  us  the  knee  of  devotion,  or  by 
the  Scriptures  before  which  they  once  listened  with  us  to 
the  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  we  look  for  them ;  but  they  are 
gone  ; — -the  place  they  once  occupied  at  our  side  is  vacant ; 
—the)7  are  far  from  us  in  their  eternal  dwelling;  and  the 
places  where  we  once  knew  them  are  now  so  many 
mementos,  that  here  we  ourselves  have  no  continuing 
city. 

We  have  another  constant  memento  of  this  fact,  in  the 
advancement  we  are  constantly  making  ourselves  towards 
eternity.  Everything  in  the  city  of  our  residence  on  earth 


164  No  Continuing  City  Here. 


reminds  us  that  we  are  never  stationary  in  it,  but  are 
always  advancing  towards  the  period  of  our  final  depar- 
ture. We  have  entered  into  a  scene  of  divine  wonders, 
but  we  cannot  delay  to  spend  our  existence  here  in  gaz- 
ing upon  them  :  we  are  constantly  in  motion,  urging  our 
way  through  them  to  an  eternal  dwelling.  Each  break- 
ing morn,  each  radiant  noon,  each  shadowy  eve,  as  they 
pass  by  us,  make  no  tarrying,  but  pass  us  never  more  to 
return.  The  jocund  spring,  summer  with  his  swarms  of 
life,  autumn  with  her  golden  harvests,  winter  with  his  icy 
sceptre  and  his  snowy  robes,  as  each  year  they  pass  us, 
are  in  constant  motion  ;  and  while  we  greet  them,  take 
their  leave  of  us  forever.  Each  changing  scene  of  life 
arrests  our  minds — enlists  our  feelings;  then  takes  its  final 
leave  of  us,  the  sons  of  eternity.  Creeping  infancy, 
merry  boyhood,  aspiring  youth,  industrious  manhood, 
decrepit  age,  we  meet  in  swift  succession  ;  just  greet ;  and 
bid  adieu  for  eternity.  In  the  midst  of  all  the  privileges 
of  the  city  of  our  residence  below,  do  our  advancing 
steps  towards  the  eternal  world  serve  constantly  to  re- 
mind us  that  here  we  have  no  permanent  dwelling.  The 
aggregate  of  days  that  have  passed  by  us,  the  yearly  sea- 
sons, the  scenes  of  life  and  periods  of  age,  since  we  came 
into  possession  of  our  privileges — since  we  first  knew  our 
dwellings,  and  walked  our  streets,  and  visited  our  sanc- 
tuaries, and  heard  the  words  of  God — are  so  many 
advances  towards  eternity  ;  and  tell,  as  they  thicken  on 
the  path  we  leave,  how  soon  we  reach  the  close  of  our 
pilgrimage  and  enter  upon  unknown  worlds. 

We  have  another  constant  memento  of  the  fact,  again, 
in  our  inability  of  prolonging  our  continuance  in  the  world. 

We  have  constant  notices  around  us  of  our  frailty,  and 
inability  to  continue  to  ourselves  our  present  privileges 
for  the  future.  Ever,  in  the  city  of  our  privileges  below, 
do  we  see  ourselves  hurried  on  by  an  unseen  hand  we 
cannot  control  ;  the  Almighty  Guide  who  conducts  us 
seems  unwilling  that  we  should  stay  ;  the  God  of  our 
spirits  who  goes  with  us  designs  we  should  have  our  set- 
tled dwelling  in  eternity  ;  and  soon  he  will  bring  us  to 


No  Continuing  City  Here.  165 


the  gates  of  the  city,  and  at  the  bidding  we  cannot  resist 
must  we  take  our  leave  of  it  for  eternity.  Around  us, 
everything  is  betokening  his  design  of  our  departure,  and 
our  inability  to  prolong  our  stay.  The  frail  hold  we  take 
of  every  earthly  possession  tells  us  that  our  grasp  on  none 
is  for  eternity.  We  are  hurried  on  from  object  to  object, 
before  we  can  call  anything  ours.  We  meet  friends  ;  but 
while  we  cling  to  them,  the  unseen  hand  of  providence 
tears  us  away  from  their  embrace.  Beauty  we  would 
linger  here  to  admire  ;  but,  while  we  look,  the  grace  of  the 
fashion  of  it  perisheth.  Power  just  takes  us  by  the  hand  ; 
and  bids  us  adieu  to  greet  a  successor.  Fame  crowns  us 
with  her  wreath  ;  but,  while  we  feel  the  rising  flush  of  joy, 
she  plucks  it  off  to  sport  with  others.  Wealth  comes  to 
feast  us  and  roll  us  in  his  car  of  pleasures ;  and  while 
accepting  his  proposals,  he  dismisses  us  to  tempt  some 
other  pilgrims  on  their  way  to  eternity.  The  unseen  hand 
of  providence  thus  tears  us  away  from  object  after  object, 
to  show  that  here  is  not  our  rest,  and  that  our  hold  on 
earth  is  frail  and  giving  way.  Around  the  city  of  our 
habitation  too,  are  the  messengers  he  sends  to  warn  us  of 
our  approaching  departure.  Decay  stands,  with  tottering 
limbs  and  feeble  breath  ;  and  lisps  to  us,  with  dying  life, 
that  we  draw  nigh  the  gate  of  our  habitation,  and  soon 
will  leave  it  for  eternal  worlds.  Diseases — busy  messen- 
gers— fly  here  and  there  to  tell  us  of  our  frail  abode,  and 
whisper  in  our  ears  '  eternity.'  Death,  armed  with  resist- 
less power,  stands  with  his  commissions  and  their  un- 
known dates,  to  lead  -us  out  of  our  residence  below,  and 
bar  on  us  its  gates  forever.  Everywhere  in  the  city  of 
our  abode  are  we  reminded  thus,  that  we  have  not  the 
power  to  prolong  our  stay  in  it,  and  that  soon  we  shall 
leave  its  privileges,  its  dwellings,  its  streets,  its  sanc- 
tuaries, its  Scriptures,  its  busy  throng,  for  eternity.  *  Here 
have  we  no  continuing  city.' 

There  is  another  means  reminding  us  constantly  of  this 
fact,  the  voice  of  God  the  Saviour.  In  the  city  of  our  habi- 
tation below,  God  has  published  his  glories,  his  statutes, 
his  offers  of  pardon  and  assistance,  for  our  use  as  sojourn- 


1 66  No  Continuing  City  Here. 


ers  here  who  are  passing  to  eternity.  He,  the  infinite 
Being  who  is  from  everlasting  to  everlasting  himself,  has 
conferred  on  us  an  existence  that  is  to  continue  and  grow 
up  by  the  side  of  his  through  everlasting  ages.  He  has 
beheld  us,  in  the  first  stages  of  our  being  here,  engaged  in 
unrighteous  rebellion  against  his  authority,  and  bent  on 
neglect  of  its  glories  ;  and,  moved  with  pity,  has  sent  his 
everlasting  Son  to  atone  for  our  guilt  and  call  us  to 
repentance,  and  his  Holy  Spirit  to  indite  his  will  and 
influence  us  to  obedience.  In  our  habitation,  we  have  his 
word  ;  here  temples  are  erected  for  his  service ;  a  day  is 
appointed  by  him  for  men  to  assemble  ;  ministers  are  com- 
missioned to  teach  ;  and  they  who  love  his  name  speak 
to  one  another  and  to  their  fellow-men  of  his  designs. 
Wherever  we  go  then,  the  voice  of  God  the  Saviour  is 
reaching  us,  and  re-echoing  the  truth  that  we  are  beings 
whose  final  dwelling  is  eternity,  and  who  have  here  no  con- 
tinuing city.  The  Bible,  whenever  it  meets  our  eye,  reit- 
erates the  voice  of  God,  that  we  must  die  and  rise  again  in 
other  worlds.  In  each  reproof  of  conscience,  his  awful 
voice  is  heard  to  speak  a  reckoning  day  in  eternity.  In 
each  act  we  do  for  God  or  for  his  kingdom  here,  his  voice 
of  love  whispers  of  eternal  joys.  Each  revolving  Sabbath, 
with  its  pealing  bells  and  open  sanctuaries  and  solemn 
rites,  bears  on  its  hours  his  voice,  that  warns  of  an  abode 
in  heaven  or  hell.  Each  sermon  is  the  call  he  makes  to 
hear  his  voice  to-day.  In  each  season  of  prayer,  we  hear 
him  say  that  we  have  not  reached  our  home — that  we  are 
pilgrims  here.  From  the  throne  of  glory  on  which  he 
will  sit  in  judgment,  and  assign  us  our  dwellings  in  eter- 
nity, God  the  Saviour  now  sends  down  the  voice  of 
monition  ;  and,  while  it  rolls  around  the  world  we  dwell 
in,  ten  thousand  messengers  echo  back  the  voice  to  our 
ears  :  that  '  here  we  have  no  continuing  city.' 

II.  But  there  are  evidences  that,  in  respect  to  a  fact  so 
momentous,  and  of  which  we  are  constantly  reminded 
from  so  many  quarters,  there  is  in  us  great  blindness. 

One  evidence  of  this  is,  that  we  think  so  little  of  our 
departure.  There  is  a  train  of  thoughts  in  which  our 


No  Continuing  City  Here.  167 


minds  are   constantly   busy,  and   over  which   we  have  a 
guiding  control.     When   we  look  back  on  this  past  em- 
ployment   of  our  minds,  and  see   the  vast  train    of  our 
secret  thoughts,  where  are  those  we  have  had  respecting 
the    brevity    of    our    continuance    on    earth,    and     our 
approaching  departure   into   eternity  ?     Do  they  rise  up 
to  our  memories  in  that  thick  array,  which  testifies  that 
we    have    lived    sufficiently  mindful    of   so   important    a 
reality  ?     Do  they  not  rather  appear  in  such  momentary 
glances  of  thought,  and  at  such  distant  intervals  from  each 
other,  as  to  evince  our  blindness  ?     Do  the  secret  thoughts 
of  our  departure  occupy  such  prominence  in  the  train,  as 
do  the  thoughts  of  those  worldly  trifles  that   meet  us  in 
the  city  of  our  habitation  ?     And  has  not  this  been  great 
blindness  in  us  ;  when  the  monuments  of  past  generations, 
the  departure  of  surrounding  companions,  our  progress, 
our  frailty,  yonder  throne  of  God  the  Saviour,  have  been 
constantly  visible,  to  excite  in  us  the  thoughts  of  eternity  ? 
Another  evidence  of  our  great  blindness  to  the  fact  is, 
that  we  speak  so  little  of  our  departure  into  eternity.     We 
have  been  conversant  with  our  fellow-men  who  have  lived  . 
with  us  in  the  city  of  our  habitation.     We  have  met  them 
in  our  streets  and  in  our  dwellings,  and  many  have  been 
the   words  we   have  spoken   with   them   that   have   been 
lodged   in   their  memories.     When  we  look  back  on  the 
words  we  have  spoken,  where  have  been  the  allusions  we 
have  made  to  our  and   their  departure   into  eternity,  or 
where  the  direct  mention  ?     We   have  alluded  to  many 
subjects,  we  have  directly  mentioned  many,  in  their  hear- 
ing ;  and  their  memories  can  testify  of  us,  whether,  when 
walking  or  sitting  with  them,  amidst  the  loud  monitors  of 
an  eternity,  we  have  given  that  prominence  in  our  words, 
that  we  ought,  to  the  hastening  change  in  our  habitation, 
or    whether    we    have  appeared    blind    to    a    change    so 
momentous  ?     Their  memories  may  testify  to  our  words 
of  affection  on  many  subjects — (oh  !  that  they  might  not  to 
words  of  deceit !  to  words  of  anger !) — but  must  they  not, 
when  they  see  the   dearth  of  our  allusions  and  mentions 


1 68  No  Continuing  City  Here. 


about  an   hereafter,   testify,   in   their  consciences    and  in 
eternity,  that  great  was  our  blindness  ? 

Another  evidence  of  our  great  blindness  to  the  fact  is, 
that  we  do  so  little  respecting  our  approaching  departure 
into  eternity.  There  is  much  to  be  done  in  the  city  of 
our  habitation  here,  before  we  leave  it  for  eternity. 
Duties  to  ourselves,  duties  to  our  fellow-men,  and  duties 
to  our  God,  claim  of  us  a  discharge  while  passing  through 
our  abode  below.  Acts  of  penitence,  acts  of  faith,  acts 
of  obedience,  are  to  be  done  by  us  in  our  persons  ;  acts  of 
charity  to  the  souls  of  our  neighbors  ;  acts  of  respect  to 
God  ; — before  we  are  prepared  to  enter  with  comfort  on 
eternity.  What,  then,  have  we  done  for  our  departure 
into  eternity  ?  Does  the  remembrance  of  the  acts  we 
have  done  while  dwelling  in  our  habitation  below — a 
habitation  crowded  with  mementos  of  eternity — testify 
that  we  have  done  what  we  ought  to  prepare  for  our 
exchange  of  dwellings  ?  Or  that  we  have  been  exceed- 
ingly blind  to  a  change  so  great  ?  Alas,  we  can  testify  to 
many  acts  that  unfit  us  for  departing  !  Can  we  to  any  that 
prepare?  Or,  if  we  have  turned  our  eye  to  a  better 
abode,  and  done  anything  to  prepare  ourselves  for  it, 
have  not  our  acts  of  preparation  been  feeble  and  sparse, 
and  proved  exceeding  blindness  in  us  to  eternity  ? 

Another  evidence  of  the  fact  is,  that  we  feel  so  little 
about  departing  from  our  present  abode  into  eternity. 
We  may  have  thought  and  spoken  and  acted,  in  the  city 
of  our  habitation  here,  to  some  poor  extent,  with  refer- 
ence to  an  approaching  eternity  ;  but  what  has  been  the 
measure  of  feeling  we  have  allowed  ourselves  to  indulge 
on  a  subject  so  momentous?  We  have  had  intense  feel- 
ings to  expend  on  other  subjects.  The  vanities,  the  pleas- 
ures, the  vexations  of  our  present  abode,  may  have 
stirred  all  our  souls  within  us  to  energy  of  feeling.  Have 
we,  while  ten  thousand  voices  have  been  proclaiming 
around  us  *  eternity  ! '  allowed  ourselves  to  feel  as  in- 
tensely as  we  ought  on  a  reality  so  weighty?  Or  must 
not  the  past  train  of  our  feelings  witness  for  us,  that  great 
has  been  our  blindness  ?  That  while  love  has  admitted  the 


No  Continuing  City  Here.  169 


claims  of  other  objects,  it  has  here  been  cold  ;  that  while 
zeal  has  been  active  for  other  purposes,  it  has  here  grown 
weary  ;  that  while  desire  has  been  intense  for  other  ends, 
it  has  here  been  wavering? 

When  we  look,  then,  at  what  we  have  thought,  what 
we  have  spoken,  what  we  have  done,  what  we  have  felt, 
in  the  city  of  our  habitation  below,  amidst  the  constant 
monitions  of  an  hereafter,  we  may  see  evidence  that  we 
have  been  almost  as  blind  to  eternity,  as  though  we  were 
to  have  here  our  permanent  dwelling.  Impenitent  sin- 
ners have  closed  their  eyes,  that  they  will  not  see  ;  and 
the  followers  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  have  been  either 
sleeping,  or,  in  wakeful  moments,  but  seeing  through  a 
glass  darkly. 

III.  But  the  fact,  of  which  we  have  so  many  monitions, 
and  respecting  which  we  have  manifested  such  blindness, 
that  *  here  we  have  no  continuing  city,'  nevertheless 
claims  of  us  a  practical  attention  ;  and  the  practical  results 
we  should  derive  from  it,  I  will  endeavour  to  illustrate  in 
my  closing  remarks. 

The  fact  then  should  influence  us  to  adopt  a  settled 
rule  of  duty. 

What  is  the  object  of  our  existence  here  and  in  eter- 
nity ?  What  are  the  means  of  securing  it  ?  Have  we 
any  rule  of  safety  for  our  guidance  ?  Have  we,  in  the 
gospel,  the  words  of  God  ?  Shall  we  take  it  as  our  guide 
and  our  hope  in  the  house  of  our  pilgrimage  ?  Or  shall 
we  reject  it,  and  follow  our  own  devices? 

This  practical  question  the  brevity  of  our  abode  below 
demands  that  we  should  firmly  settle— and  adopt,  if 
worthy  of  it,  the  gospel  as  our  settled  rule,  or  prove  it 
vain,  and  take  some  other  rule.  We  have  no  time  to 
waste  in  doubts.  We  must  not  squander  time  in  hesita- 
tion? We  stand  by  the  very  gates  of  eternity.  The 
gospel,  that  now  tenders  to  us  its  guidance  in  the  steps  of 
this  pilgrimage,  we  shall  soon  leave,  with  the  city  of  our 
habitation,  and  have  a  whole  eternity  to  employ  in  look- 
ing back  upon  our  conduct  here.  If  the  Bible  contain 
the  words  of  God,  we  shall  pass  by  his  throne  on  our  way 

23 


170  No  Continuing  City  Here. 


to  our  eternal  dwelling" ;  and  these  words,  which  Jesus 
gave  us,  shall  judge  us  in  that  day  of  meeting  God.  If 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has,  '  by  his  divine  power,  given  us' 
in  this  book,  '  all  things  which  pertain  to  life  and  godli- 
ness,' then  they  who  take  not  this  gospel  to  sway  their 
opinions  and  conduct  here  will  be  found,  in  that  day, 
'  without  the  faith  that  pleases  God,'  guilty  of  *  treading 
under  foot  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  God,'  and  will  receive 
condemnation,  and  '  go  away  into  everlasting  punish- 
ments '  :  and  they  who  do  make  it  their  influential  rule 
will,  in  that  day,  '  cleansed  from  sin  through  sprinkling  of 
the  blood  of  Jesus/  'unblamable  in  love  through  sanctifi- 
cation  of  the  Spirit,'  receive  the  approving  welcome  of 
God,  and  *  enter  into  life  eternal.' 

Again  ;  the  fact  should  influence  us  to  moderation  in  the 
use- we  make  of  the  present  world.  Our  worldly  enjoyments 
are  designed  only  as  accommodations  for  us  on  our  way 
to  eternity.  The  city  of  our  habitation  is  furnished  with 
them  by  God  the  Saviour,  to  sustain  and  cheer  us  in  his 
service,  while  distant  from  his  habitation.  We  are  sur- 
rounded on  every  hand,  even  now  while  we  are  partaking; 
of  these  joys,  with  the  monitions  of  eternity  ;  and  soon 
shall  we  leave  our  abode  below  to  part  with  them  forever. 
How  little  ought  we  to  make  of  its  enjoyments,  who  are 
so  soon  to  leave  them  for  eternity  !  Why  attach  ourselves 
immoderately  to  a  habitation,  erected  to  lodge  us  on  our 
way  to  eternity  ?  Why  draw  away  our  hearts  from  our 
final  dwelling  ?  Why  labor  to  strengthen  ties  so  soon  to 
be  burst  asunder?  We  are  but  increasing  for  ourselves 
the  pangs  of  the  parting  struggle.  We  shall  but  bid 
adieu  to  our  habitation  with  greater  regret.  While  ab- 
sorbed in  time,  we  shall  be  but  neglecting  eternity.  Eter- 
nity !  how  should  it  swallow  up  the  comparatively  trifling 
concerns  of  time,  and  make  them  all  as  nothing  !  "  This 
I  say,  brethren,  the  time  is  short :  it  remaineth  that  both 
they  that  have  wives  be  as  though  they  had  none  ;  and 
they  that  weep,  as  though  they  wept  not;  and  they  that 
rejoice,  as  though  they  rejoiced  not ;  and  they  that  buy, 
as  though  they  possessed  not ;  and  they  that  use  this 


No  Continuing  City  Here.  171 


world  as  not  abusing  it :  for  the  fashion  of  this  world 
passeth  away." 

Again  ;  the  brevity  of  our  abode  below  should  influence 
us  to  improve  our  passing  privileges  and  opportunities.  In 
the  city  of  our  residence  in  this  world  are  we  favored  by 
God  the  Saviour  with  many  privileges  in  regard  to  his 
service,  and  many  opportunities  of  doing  good  to  fellow- 
citizens  who  are  advancing  with  us  to  eternity.  These 
seasons  of  doing  service  for  God  are  rapidly  rolling  over 
us ;  and  soon,  in  -our  hasty  advance  to  eternity,  shall  we 
pass  by  them  all,  and  leave  the  city  of  our  privileges  for- 
ever. Each  season,  as  it  meets  us  in  our  progress,  invites 
us  to  the  glorious  work  of  God,  then  bids  us  farewell,  and 
bears  to  eternity  the  report  of  what  we  do  and  how  we 
serve  our  King.  Soon,  on  the  shores  of  eternity,  shall  we 
look  back  on  these  privileges  that  met  us,  when  with  fel- 
low-pilgrims here  we  urged  our  onward  way,  and  date, 
from  these  years  below,  the  era  of  our  eternal  joys  or  our 
unending  woes.  There,  through  the  progress  of  eternal 
years,  shall  the  privileges  we  are  passing  now  be  seen 
attesting  those  works  whose  influence  follows  us,  in  songs 
we  raise  with  fellow  heirs  of  glory,  or  curses  mingled  by 
us  with  angry  spirits  of  despair.  Now  is  our  time,  as 
privileges  are  passing  by  us,  to  escape  the  woes  of  hell, 
and  fill  eternity  with  joys.  Each  opportunity  we  pass 
will  tell  of  eternal  losses,  or  eternal  gains.  While  then 
we  greet  each  passing  season  privileged  with  grace,  how 
watchful  should  we  be  to  seize  and  use  it  for  our  God ! 
With  what  fear  of  misimprovement  and  its  woes,  pass 
every  day  of  our  sojourning  here!  How  ardent  in  our 
love  to  God  and  man !  How  constant  to  urge  our  bright 
and  burning  way,  and  to  spread  the  savor  of  our  love 
around  us  on  fellow  pilgrims  to  eternity ! 

Again ;  the  fact  that  '  here  we  have  no  continuing  city,' 
should  influence  us  to  maintain  a  constant  readiness  for  our 
departure  into  eternity. 

Soon  the  period  will  come,  when  we  shall  exchange  our 
abode ;  and  bidding  adieu  to  the  beings,  the  scenes  and 
the  privileges  of  the  city,  where  we  spent  the  first  years 


172  No  Continuing  City  Here. 


of  our  existence,  pass  through  the  gates  of  death,  and 
enter  the  eternal  abode  assigned  us  by  our  God.  We 
have  before  us  this  season  of  solemnities  in  exchanging 
worlds. 

That  awful  day  will  surely  come  ; 
The  appointed  hour  makes  haste  ; 
When  I  must  stand  before  my  Judge, 
And  pass  the  solemn  test. 

Oh  !  to  be  able,  in  the  day  of  our  departure,  to  know 
that  we  have  believed  in  a  Saviour  who  has  prepared 
mansions  for  us  above  ;  to  have  our  souls  tilled  with  love 
to  his  glories  and  joys  in  his  kingdom ;  to  look,  with  the 
even  serenity  of  trust,  alike  on  a  retiring  world  and  on  an 
opening  eternity  ;  to  leave  a  sweet  savor  of  our  godliness 
on  friends  below,  as  the  joys  of  eternity  break  on  our 
souls ;  to  be  able  to  pass  the  solemnities  of  exchanging 
worlds  in  such  a  state  of  preparation, — brethren,  is  it  not 
worth  maintaining  a  constant  readiness  during  our  abode 
below !  What  anguish  will  wring  the  hearts  of  those 
who  come  to  these  solemnities,  without  having  confided 
with  devotedness  in  a  Saviour;  when,  torn  from  their 
portion  below,  they  enter  on  endless  waitings*!  What 
terrors  will  distract  those  who,  having  believed  in  a  Sav- 
iour, are  so  surprised,  in  that  state  of  worldliness  and 
unwatchfulness,  as  to  cling  with  desire  to  their  present 
abode,  and  recoil  with  horror  from  the  clouds  of  uncer- 
tainty that  veil  eternity !  Think,  fellow-strangers  here,  of 
this  approaching  season  of  solemnities !  While  loud  mo- 
nitions tell  you  of  the  scene,  awake  from  your  lethargy, 
and  prepare!  ' Take  heed  to  yourselves  lest  at  any  time 
your  hearts  be  overcharged  with  surfeiting  and  cares  of 
this  life,  and  so  that  day  overtake  you  unawares.'  '  Stand 
with  your  loins  girded  about,  and  your  lights  burning, 
like  unto  men  that  wait  for  their  lord.'  'Be  sober:' 
*  watch  :'  *  pray  '  '  always ;  that  ye  may  be  accounted  wor- 
thy to  escape  all  these  things  which  shall  come  to  pass, 
and  to  stand  before  the  Son  of  Man.' 

Fellow  travellers  to  eternity  !  we  have  passed  another 
year  of  our  residence  in  the  world  below.  As  we  have 


No  Continuing  City  Here.  173 


just  bidden  it  adieu,  and  have  closed  up  its  concerns  for 
the  judgment  and  eternity,  let  us  survey  the  paths  in 
which  we  have  been  walking ;  and  see  whether  we  have 
been  living  for  time  or  for  eternity.  Whither  have  been 
tending  our  thoughts,  our  words,  our  conduct,  our  hearts  ? 
At  every  step  through  the  revolving  year,  God  followed 
us  with  kind  monitions  of  an  hereafter.  The  ashes  of  the 
dead  we  trod,  the  monuments  we  saw  of  sleeping  ances- 
tors, these  scenes  where  others  lived,  once  busied  here, 
now  mouldered  into  dust,  have  whispered,  as  we  passed 
along,  *  eternity.'  Companions  too,  flushed  with  health 
and  life  as  we,  when  we  stood  together  on  the  threshold 
of  the  year  and  hailed  it  with  bright  wishes,  have  passed 
beyond  the  vale  and  left  their  warnings.  We  saw  them 
leave  us ;  and  as  we  looked  around  to  scenes  where  once 
with  us  they  mingled  souls,  the  vacant  place  said  for  them 
*  eternity.'  Our  advancing  life,  and  our  frail  tenements 
that  scarcely  held  us  here,  have  given  us  monitions.  God 
the  Saviour  has  passed  us  with  his  word,  with  his  days  of 
grace,  with  the  triumphs  of  his  redeeming  love. 

Have  we   lived   for  time?     Or  have  we  for  eternity  ?- 
Put  the  question  home.     The  year  is  past.     We  cannot 
now  recall  its  hours.     Its  records  now  are  writ  in  heaven. 
When  the  archangel, 

with  his  golden  wing, 
Sweeps  stars  and  suns  aside, 

preparing  the  Son  of  God  his  way,  the  unrolled  records 
of  this  year  shall  tell.  When  ages  after  ages  roll  away, 
high  in  the  realms  of  bliss,  or  deep  in  the  prison  of  des- 
pair, will  you  look  back  on  years  below,  and  date  this 
year,  celestial  joys,  or  woes  unending.  Convert  of  Christ, 
who  dost  date  this  year  the  era  of  thy  heavenly  hopes, 
praise  God  that  gave  thee  such  a  year  of  grace,  and  feel 
constraining  love  to  yield  him  the  willing  sacrifice  of  life  ? 
Wavering  follower  of  Christ,  weep  thy  mis-spent  hours, 
and  pray  the  grace  that  blots  such  records  out,  and  helps 
to  spend  remaining  days  for  God  !  Christless  sinner,  see 
your  path  of  death  ;  awake,  and  live ! 


A   CONTINUING   CITY  TO  COME. 


HEBREWS  XIII:  14. 
HERE  WE  HAVE  NO  CONTINUING  CITY  ;  BUT  WE  SEEK  ONE  TO  COME. 

THE  Apostle,  in  the  text,  reminds  his  believing  breth- 
ren of  that  better  city, — the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  in  which 
they  had  laid  up  their  hopes,  and  which,  while  on  earth, 
they  as  pilgrims  were  seeking.  Though  their  earthly  city 
was  not  to  continue, — though  they  were  soon  to  see  their 
hardened  yet  beloved  Jerusalem  laid  waste,  their  kindred 
suffering,  and  themselves  turned  desolate  upon  the  world, 
they  were  seeking  a  city  to  come,  and  soon  would  enter 
it,  which  would  continue  ;  where  no  hardening  iniquity 
should  ever  defile,  no  curse  of  God  descend,  no  enemy 
lay  waste,  no  sufferings  enter :  a  city  of  unsullied  love, 
immovable  security,  unending  joys.  Patient  then  might 
they  well  be  in  enduring  the  will  of  God  awhile,  who 
were  expectants  of  so  great  and  precious  promises. 

The  apostle  thus  reminds  all  believers  that,  amid  the 
instability  of  earthly  things,  they  are  to  find  their  consola- 
tion in  earnestly  seeking  that  enduring  city  which  God 
has  prepared  for  the  righteous  in  eternity. 

Let  us,  then,  for  our  spiritual  benefit,  direct  our  medi- 
tations to  that  continuing  city  to  come  ;  and  inquire, 

I.  What  are  the  sources  of  its  joys  ? 

II.  Who  are  seeking  it?  and, 

III.  What  are  the   evidences  that  they   who   do,  will 
obtain  admission  ? 

1.  What  then  are  the  sources  of  joy  pertaining  to  this 
city  of  God  in  eternity  ?  I  answer, 

First,  the  inhabitants  consist  of  countless  numbers  of  intel- 
ligent beings,  various  in  their  orders  and  ages  and  origin. 


176  A  Continuing  City  to  Come. 


There  is  Jehovah,  the  greatest  of  intelligent  beings, 
whose  mysterious  existence  is  forever  exalted  beyond  the 
increasing  researches  of  the  highest  creature,  whose  attri- 
butes know  no  limitation  ;  whose  age  is  from  eternity  ; 
who  has  ever  been  present  in  all  places  of  the  universe ; 
who  reigns  as  the  king,  and  shines  as  the  light,  of  the 
celestial  city  forever  more.  And  he  describes  himself  as 
"  dwelling  among  them,"  a  fellow  inhabitant !  There 
also  are  the  angels,  whose  number  is  "  ten  thousand 
times  ten  thousand  and  thousands  of  thousands."  They 
are  more  in  number  than  we  are  able  to  form  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  in  the  present  state  ;  being  described  by  an 
apostle  as  "  an  innumerable  company."  From  the  des- 
cription given  of  them  in  the  word  of  God,  of  their 
different  orders  and  names  and  stations,  it  would  seem 
probable  that  they  are  of  different  orders  in  their  mental 
powers  and  attainments — some  of  them  the  most  exalted 
in  intelligence  of  created  beings — and  that  they  had  their 
origin  in  different  parts  of  the  universe,  and  were  trained 
up  under  different  systems  of  providence,  before  they 
were  collected  "  together  in  one  in  heavenly  places." 
Their  age  goes  far  back,  it  is  probable,  of  the  date  of  the 
creation  described  by  Moses  ;  for  Satan,  once  a  com- 
panion of  theirs,  had  already  passed  through  his  trial  and 
fallen,  when,  in  the  early  age  of  this  world,  he  tempted 
our  first  parents  ;  and  Job,  it  has  been  supposed,  describes 
angels,  when  speaking  of  the  morning  stars  and  sons  of 
God  as  rejoicing  over  the  creation  of  this  system.  There 
are  also  to  be  among  the  inhabitants  of  that  celestial  city 
—as  it  will  ultimately  be  constituted — a  multitude  which 
no  man  can  number  of  men  from  this  world,  collected 
from  different  ages  and  different  parts  of  the  world — from 
the  east,  the  west,  the  north,  the  south — who  constitute 
the  redeemed  of  the  Lord,  rescued  from  sin,  and  trained 
up  under  a  peculiar  system  of  providence  to  prepare 
them  for  that  city.  Thus  numerous  and  thus  various  in 
their  orders,  their  ages,  their  origin,  are  the  intelligent 
beings  who  reside  in  the  city  of  God  ! 


A  Continuing  City  to  Come.  177 


I  remark  again  :  all  the  inhabitants  there  are  actuated 
by  holy  love.  Jehovah,  who  has  there  fixed  his  everlasting 
throne,  beams  forth  on  the  whole  society  the  light  of 
that  intense  love  that  awoke  its  various  beings  into 
existence,  that  followed  them  with  his  supporting  hand 
and  guiding  care  in  the  various  places  where  they  spent 
the  first  stages  of  their  being.  His  is  the  love  that  col- 
lected them  into  one  harmonious  and  happy  society,  to 
live  under  his  smiles  forever:  the  holy  love,  that  adorns 
him  with  truth  and  justice  and  goodness  and  grace  ;  that 
preserved  angels  in  holiness ;  that  sent  forth  his  Son  and 
Spirit  to  the  lost  world  to  save  the  redeemed  ;  and  that 
guides  them,  by  his  government  in  the  celestial  city,  to 
waters  of  life  and  trees  of  life  forever.  All  the  innumer- 
able hosts  of  created  beings  too  in  that  city,  are  actuated 
by  holy  love.  This  is  the  character  of  angels  that  never 
fell,  that  were  trained  up  in  swift  obedience  to  the  will  of 
God,  that  exercise  their  benevolence  in  deeds  of  min- 
istry to  heirs  of  salvation.  This  is  the  character  of 
redeemed  men,  who  turned  from  their  rebellions  to  the 
service  of  God,  and  imitated  their  Saviour  in  doing  good , 
to  their  fellow-men  while  on  earth,  and  who  were  estab- 
lished unblamable  in  love  on  their  admission  to  the  city. 
These  perfectly  benevolent  beings  there  spend,  in  one 
harmonious  society,  the  days  of  their  immortal  existence. 

Again  ;  the  deeds  in  whicJi  they  are  employed  in  that  city  are 
suited  to  gratify  their  benevolence.  In  a  society  of  intelli- 
gent beings  who  are  completely  perfect  in  love,  there  is 
nothing  to  hinder  any  one  from  engaging  in  conduct 
which  he  most  loves.  Though  we  know  not  all  the 
peculiar  employments  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  heavenly 
city,  and  probably  could  not  know  while  surrounded 
with  this  clothing  of  flesh  and  blood,  yet  doubtless  such  a 
society  gives  scope  to  all  the  benevolent  employment  that 
is  desirable  to  all  the  inhabitants.  There  Jehovah, — God 
and  the  Lamb, — is  forever  engaged  in  supporting,  and 
reigning  over,  the  society,  guiding  each  and  all  in  their 
employments  and  joys,  leading  them  to  fountains  of  living 
waters,  and  wiping  away  all  tears  forever  :  and  he  looks 

24 


78  A  Continuing  City  to  Come. 


with  complacence  on  the  everlasting  fruits  of  his  deeds  of 
kindness,  pronouncing  them  very  good  ;  and  his  deeds  in 
the  society  are  suited  to  gratify  his  own  heart  of  infinite 
love. 

There  the  innumerable  company  of  angels  and  the 
redeemed  see,  in  each  other,  persons  to  whom  they  can 
show  forth  kindness,  and  in  whose  holiness  they  can  take 
a  complacent  esteem,  and  in  doing  them  good  and  par- 
ticipating in  their  society  can  find  employments  suited  to 
gratify  their  benevolent  hearts.  Thus  may  a  Paul  find 
his  converts  to  be  his  crown  and  his  joy  above.  There 
too  may  they  engage  in  various  ways  in  doing  the  will 
of  God,  in  contemplating  his  perfections  as  they  are 
developing  in  his  providence,  and  in  studying  the  end- 
less variety  of  his  works.  There  too  may  they  unite 
in  solemn  acts  of  adoration  and  praise,  as  when  the  Sera- 
phim vail  their  faces  and  cry,  "  Holy,  holy,  is  the  Lord 
God  of  Sabbaoth  "  ;  or  as  when  the  elders  4i  fall  down 
before  the  Lamb,  having  harps  and  golden  vials  full  of 
odors,  and  sing,  Thou  wast  slain  and  hast  redeemed  us  to 
God  by  thy  blood  "  ;  or  as  when  the  multitude  of  the 
redeemed,  "  clothed  with  white  robes  and  palms  in  their 
hands,  cry,  with  loud  voice,  Salvation  to  our  God  which 
sitteth  upon  the  throne  and  unto  the  Lamb "  ;  or  as 
when  the  whole  multitude  of  the  numberless  inhabitants 
of  the  city  throughout  its  remotest  bounds  swell  with  one 
voice  the  chorus  of  praise,  "  Blessing  and  honor  and  glory 
and  power  be  unto  him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and 
unto  the  "Lamb  forever  and  ever."  There  in  that  everlast- 
ing city  the  innumerable  inhabitants  engage  thus  in  un- 
ceasing employments  of  benevolence  and  piety,  employ- 
ments that  are  suited  to  their  high  capacities  of  intelli- 
gence and  their  complete  perfection  in  holiness. 

Again  ;  the  inhabitants  are  secure  in  these  joys  for 
eternity.  The  city  has  immovable  foundations,  for  its 
builder  and  maker  is  God.  He  who  liveth  forever  has 
encircled  it  with  walls  of  everlasting  strength.  He  has 
fixed  his  throne  in  it,  to  reign  there  forever  and  ever. 
He  has  peopled  it  with  perfectly  holy  inhabitants, 


A  Continuing  City  to  Come.  179 


gathered  from  the  whole  universe,  to  set  forth  his  eternal 
glories.  Strong  is  his  almighty  arm  to  uphold  and 
defend,  to  guide  and  bless ;  and  he  will  employ  it  for  the 
eternal  welfare  of  his  people.  Unreached  by  death,  unsul- 
lied by  sin,  undisturbed  by  enemies,  unapproached  by  suf- 
ferings,— the  countless  multitude  of  its  inhabitants,  with 
increasing  energies  of  mind  and  intensity  of  holy  affec- 
tion, continue  the  ceaseless  round  of  their  happy  services 
forever  and  ever.  No  change  awaits  them  more.  They 
are  now  in  their  final  home  ;  in  an  everlasting  dwelling  ; 
in  a  continuing  city  ;  an  immovable  kingdom. 

II.  But  this  city  of  endless  habitation  is  to  be  sought 
during  our  present  residence  on  earth,  if  we  would  obtain 
admission.  Let  us  then  inquire  who  are  seeking  it  as  their 
final  home. 

i.  They  who  truly  seek  it  are  those  who  are  submitting 
themselves  in  faith  to  the  word  of  God.  They  are  called  to 
the  new  enterprise  of  seeking  the  kingdom  and  glory  of 
God,  by  his  word  and  Spirit.  For  it  is  God,  by  his  word 
in  Christ,  who  sets  before  us  that  eternal  dwelling,  and 
points  to  us  the  only  way  to  reach  its  gates  and  have  an 
entrance  ministered  to  us  into  its  everlasting  joys.  The 
vail  that  separates  that  world  from  us  precludes  vision : 
and  they  who  are  earnestly  seeking  it,  confide  themselves 
wholly  to  the  word  of  God  as  the  directory  of  their  steps. 
They  hear  this,  as  it  comes  from  the  realms  of  eternity  ; 
and  they  start  up  at  its  call,  to  follow  implicitly  and  un- 
reservedly their  guiding  God.  They  are  solicited  indeed 
in  their  earthly  pilgrimage  by  many  guides,  by  many 
tempters,  by  many  foes  ;  but  they  hear  the  voice  of  God, 
and  they  confide  all  their  happiness  to  that ;  and  they  say 
to  every  solicitation  that  would  draw  them  aside  from 
their  purpose,  *  Behind  me  ;  thou  savorest  not  the  things 
that  be  of  God.'  They  yield  to  that  word  their  opinions, 
and  that  is  their  faith  ;  they  yield  to  it  their  feelings,  and 
that  is  their  faith  ;  they  yield  to  it  their  lives,  and  that  is 
their  faith  ;  they  build  on  it  their  hopes,  and  that  is  their 
faith  ;  and  confiding  solely  in  its  guidance,  as  did  Abra- 


180  A  Continuing  City  to  Come. 


ham  when  leaving  his  kindred  at  its  call,  they  are  seeking 
that  blest  "  city  which  hath  foundations." 

Again  ;  they  who  seek  that  enduring  city  are  obedient 
to  the  will  of  God  during  their  present  life.  They  continue 
to  advance  towards  that  heavenly  abode,  by  holding  on 
steadfastly  to  their  confidence  in  the  word  of  God,  and 
following  his  will  in  the  ways  of  obedience.  In  the 
strength  of  their  confidence,  they  cheerfully  engage  in 
the  services  and  patiently  submit  to  the  trials,  which 
attend  them  on  their  way.  The  King  of  that  heavenly 
city  has  filled  it  with  holy  inhabitants,  who  delight  in 
exercising  that  benevolent  love  which  is  inculcated  in  his 
law.  He  designs  to  admit  no  being  into  it  that  will  ever 
defile  its  society  with  sin — none  but  those  who  will 
adhere  to  obedience  forever.  He  has  therefore  wisely 
appointed  that  men,  coming  as  they  do  from  a  world  of 
rebellion  and  rescued  from  a  state  of  sin,  should  have 
time  for  the  trial  of  their  obedience — time  for  crucifying 
the  flesh  with  its  lusts,  and  strengthening  their  devoted- 
ness — time  for  washing  their  robes  and  making  them 
white — before  they  enter  that  abode  of  perfect  holin'ess. 
They  therefore  who  are  earnestly  seeking  it,  follow  the 
guidance  of  the  Saviour  in  doing  his  will  on  earth.  Here 
on  their  way  they  obey  his  statutes  of  benevolence  ;  and, 
while  actively  employed  in  doing  good  to  men  and  serv- 
ing God,  and  passing,  with  submission,  through  scenes  of 
trial — while  strewing  their  pathway  with  the  fruits  of 
benevolence  and  piety — are  exterminating  sin  from  their 
hearts,  and  strengthening  that  holy  love  which  shall  glow 
eternally  in  the  city  of  God.  Under  the  present  trial  of 
their  obedience,  they  cast  not  away  their  confidence ;  they 
draw  not  back  to  perdition  ;  but  they  confide  through 
tribulation,  patiently  doing  the  will  of  God,  intent  on 
receiving  the  promise,  earnest  on  attaining  the  end  of 
their  faith,  the  purity  and  eternal  salvation  of  their 
souls. 

Again  ;  they  who  seek  that  endless  city  subordinate  to 
its  attainment  the  present  world.  They  place  dependence 
on  the  promise  of  God  in  his  word,  more  than  they  do  on 


A  Continuing  City  to  Come.  181 


the  present  world,  for  their  happiness  ;  and  the  world  of 
his  promise  is  far  more  desirable  to  them  than  the  world 
of  their  trial.  The  city  of  their  present  habitation  they 
regard  with  the  feelings  of  strangers,  who  are  going  to 
reside  for  ever  in  a  far  better  country.  Like  strangers, 
they  abstain  from  those  strongly  ascendant  attachments 
which  would  make  them  forget  the  abode  they  are  seek- 
ing. They  see  in  the  scenery  of  this  world,  in  its  society, 
in  its  comforts,  in  its  attainments,  in  its  worship,  in  its 
partial  manifestations  of  divine  glory,  much  indeed  that 
they  love  ;  but  they  hope,  while  trusting  in  the  guidance 
of  God,  to  reach  a  habitation  that  is  not  momentary,  like 
the  present,  but  endless  ;  where  exists  a  richer  scenery,  a 
better  society,  more  solid  joys,  knowledge  more  elevated, 
employments  and  worship  more  satisfying  and  sublime — 
where  the  glory  of  God  shines  forth  in  the  splendors  of 
everlasting  day.  Confiding  in  the  word  of  their  guiding 
God,  their  desire  after  the  world  of  promise  is  thus  ascen- 
dant. They  feel  not  here  at  home  ;  not  receiving  here 
the  promises  they  are  seeking;  but  seeing  them  afar  off, 
and  being  persuaded  of  them  and  embracing  them,  they 
confess  that  they  are  strangers  and  pilgrims  upon  the 
earth.  Truly,  if  they  were  most  mindful  of  their  present 
abode,  they  have  the  opportunity  of  being  wholly  devoted 
to  its  joys  ;  but,  by  subordinating  the  present  world  to 
their  faith  in  Christ  and  their  desire  to  attain  the  prom- 
ises, it  is  manifest  that  they  are  seeking  a  better  coun- 
try. God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  the  God  of  such  ; 
for  he  hath  prepared  for  them  a  city. 

III.  Let  us  in  the  third  place  inquire  into  tlie  evidences 
that  they  who  tints  seek  the  city  of  God  will  obtain  admission. 

One  such  evidence  exists  in  the  direct  promises  of  God. 
He  has  made  plain  promises,  to  accompany  his  calls  of 
authority,  to  those  who  in  obedience  to  his  calls  come  out 
from  the  sins  of  this  world,  and  are  separate  by  devotion 
to  his  service?  He  has  engaged  to  be  a  father  and  to 
adopt  them  as  his  sons  and  daughters,  and  admit  them  to 
dwell  in  his  celestial  family  in  heaven.  A  single  promise 
of  God  cannot  be  broken ;  but  he  has  repeated  his  prom- 


1 82  A  Continuing  City  to  Come. 


ise.  A  simple  declaration  is  enough  ;  but  he  has  added 
to  declarations  the  solemn  formality  of  taking,  on  the 
throne  of  his  heavenly  habitation,  "  an  oath  for  confirma- 
tion." Now  they  who  in  this  world  are  confiding  in  his 
guidance,  obedient  to  his  will,  and  desirous  of  a  heavenly 
country,  are  the  very  persons  to  whom  God  has  applied 
his  promises,  and  how  strong  consolation  have  they  ! 
The  word  and  oath  of  an  omnipotent  God  !  When  they 
enter  eternity,  therefore,  the  heirs  of  such  promises,  He 
will  fulfill  the  word  in  which  he  has  caused  their  souls  to 
hope,  Ijis  omniscient  eye  and  almighty  arm  will  see  that 
none  of  them  are  lost,  that  all  have  admission  through 
the  gates  into  the  city. 

Again  ;  such  evidence  is  seen  in  the  mission  to  our  world 
of  the  Lord  Jesus .  Christ  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  has 
not  merely  caused  his  voice  of  authority  and  of  promise 
to  be  heard  in  our  world,  but  from  the  throne  of  his  resi- 
dence has  he  sent,  to  visit  us  in  our  condemnation,  his 
beloved  Son  to  make  atonement  for  our  sins,  by  dying 
and  rising  again  for  our  justification.  He  has  beheld  us 
in  the  strength  of  our  rebellion  and  the  temptations  of 
our  abode,  and  sent  also  his  Holy  Spirit  to  rescue  sinners 
and  help  believers  on  their  way  to  his  heavenly  habita- 
tion. Now  they  who  truly  seek  the  glories  of  his  kingdom, 
are  the  very  persons  to  whom  that  cross  on  which  Christ 
died  becomes  an  effectual  propitiation,  in  the  application 
of  his  blood  to  wash  them  from  their  sins ;  and  to  whom 
his  resurrection  from  the  dead  becomes  a  lively  hope  of 
immortality.  They  are  the  very  persons  whom  the  Spirit 
is  attending  with  his  effectual  influence  ;  to  keep  in  the 
way  of  holiness,  and  to  preserve  in  it  to  the  day  of  God, 
and  to  present  before  him  unblamable  in  love.  When  they 
enter  eternity  then,  is  there  uncertainty  respecting  their 
final  abode?  Will  not  he,  who  has  given  his  Son  to  die 
for  them  and  his  Spirit  to  guide  them,  "  freely  give  them 
all  things?"  Will  he,  who  has  led  them  with  the  hand  of 
infinite  kindness  up  in  all  their  way  to  the  very  border  of 
his  heavenly  city,  now  bar  on  them  its  gates  and  refuse 
them  entrance  ? 


A  Continuing  City  to  Come.  183 


Again ;  another  evidence  God  has  given  us,  in  the 
assurance  that  he  has  already  admitted  the  faithful  from 
earth  into  that  city.  He  has  not  only  given  us  his  promise, 
and  permitted  us  to  see  him  using  his  agency  in  the  pres- 
ent world  for  redemption,  but  has  assured  us  of  the  fact 
that  he  has  already  admitted  into  his  presence  all  those 
persons  who  have  left  the  world  in  faith.  The  vail  of  the 
invisible  world  has  he  lifted  up  and  permitted  us  to  cast 
a  glance  on  its  holy  inhabitants.  There  in  that  distant 
high  abode  we  see,  among  the  spotless  multitudes  before 
his  throne,  all  those  who,  having  followed  with  faith  his 
guidance  below  till  their  last  conflict  with  death,  came 
out  of  their  great  tribulation  with  their  robes  washed  and 
made  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  having  obtained 
the  eternal  victory.  There  now  before  his  throne  are  all 
the  spirits  of  those  just  men,  who  confided  themselves  to 
the  guidance  of  his  word  when  on  earth,  and  who  in  the  con- 
summation of  obedience  and  joy  are  made  forever  perfect ; 
all  they  who  in  faith  passed  the  time  of  their  sojourning 
here  in  preceding  generations ;  and  all  our  dear  com- 
panions whom  we  once  knew  and  loved,  and  with  tears 
bade  adieu,  as  in  faith  they  closed  their  eyes  on  us  and 
on  these  present  scenes.  And  with  all  this  cloud  of  wit- 
nesses already- admitted  into  the  heavenly  city  attest- 
ting  the  faithfulness  of  God,  may  we  not  believe  undoubt- 
ingly  that,  by  following  our  God  with  faith  unto  the  gate 
of  death,  we  shall  not  fail  of  entering  into  his  holy  habita- 
tion, but  shall  have  "  an  entrance  ministered  to  us  abun- 
dantly "  by  willing  angels,  willing  saints,  and  by  willing 
companions,  "  into  the  everlasting  kingdom  of  God  our 
Saviour?  " 

The  view  which  we  have  now  taken  of  the  city  of  God 
in  eternity,  in  regard  to  its  constituent  joys,  the  persons  on 
earth  who  are  truly  seeking  it,  and  the  certainty  of  their 
admission,  may  serve  to  enforce  on  our  minds  some  useful 
reflections. 

We  learn  from  our  subject  the  value  of  the  word  of 
God.  Blest  volume  from  the  Father  of  Mercies  ! — This 
light,  that  unfolds  to  view  a  celestial  city,  shines  on  our 


184  A  Continuing  City  to  Come. 


path,  and  shows  the  promises,  the  arm  of  power,  the  ac- 
complished deeds  of  grace,  that  encourage  guilty  men  to 
enter  on  the  way  to  heaven,  and  persevere  with  hope  till 
they  receive  the  full  fruition  of  their  faith.  Well  may 
they  who  seek  a  heavenly  country  make  these  statutes  of 
the  Lord  their  song  in  the  house  of  their  pilgrimage. 
Here  we  behold  his  promises  of  life  in  Christ,  sealed  by 
miracles  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  by  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  from  the  dead  and  ascension  to  immortality  as  the 
first  fruits  of  them  that  sleep  ;  and  to  that  word  which 
begot  our  hope  we  cling  as  the  charter  of  our  immor- 
tality. 

Again,  we  may  find  in  our  subject  a  source  of  support 
under  the  trials  we  are  called  to  endure  in  this  world. 
Trials  here  will  come.  They  are  not  joyous  while  they 
pass,  but  grievous.  Yet  they  who  trust  in  the  guiding 
word  of  God,  and  follow  his  will  in  faith,  see  ground,  in 
their  final  and  better  home,  to  endure  with  patience  all 
these  sorrows  of  the  way.  The  storms  that  blow  upon 
the  city  of  their  residence  below  are  momentary,  and  give 
exercise  to  that  faith  that  will  be  found  unto  honor  and 
glory  and  praise  in  the  day  of  Jesus  Christ.  '  The  night 
soon  flies  ;  and  day  eternal  shines.' 

Again ;  we  may  learn  from  this  subject^to  be  reconciled 
to  the  brevity  of  our  residence  on  the  earth.  The  life  of 
man  in  this  world,  what  is  it  but  a  busy  dream,  an  empty 
vapor,  a  flying  shadow  ?  nothing  compared  with  immor- 
tality. While  we  are  in  this  world  admiring  its  beauties, 
tasting  its  provisions,  conversing  with  its  inhabitants, 
engaged  in  its  employments,  it  may  at  times  seem  unde- 
sirable that  we  should  be  hurried  through  it  with  such 
rapidity,  as  that  all  our  opportunities  of  acquaintance  with 
it  should  leave  us  still  comparatively  strangers  to  it ;  that 
when  we  have  but  just  entered  into  its  scenes,  and  been 
introduced  to  its  inhabitants,  and  become  interested  in 
them,  we  should  be  torn  away  from  them  forever.  But 
the  city  of  God  to  come,  may  reconcile  us  to  the  fact  of 
our  having  no  continuing  city  on  the  earth.  If  we  are 
seeking  in  earnest  that  habitation  while  passing  through 


A  Continuing  City  to  Come.  185 


this,  we  shall  forever  feel  satisfied  in  the  end  that  we 
spent  no  more  days  than  we  did  of  our  existence  here. 
For  as  no  joys  of  this  abode  are  worth  an  immortality, 
but  such  as  are  connected  with  the  love  and  service  of 
God,  so  these  joys  will  be  continued  and  greatly  height- 
ened in  the  heavenly  city.  There  will  all  they  enter  who 
loved  the  Saviour  and  his  people  here ;  and  they  wrill  find 
all  the  ages  of  eternity  spent  in  services  so  much  more  ex- 
alted and  satisfying  than  any  in  which  they  engaged  below, 
as  to  make  the  exchange  of  dwellings  their  endless  gain. 
If  the  city  of  your  abode  here  is  to  be  dissolved,  the  no- 
bler city  of  God  above  hath  foundations  that  shall  not  be 
shaken  through  eternity  :  and  if  you  are  a  willing  stranger 
here,  seeking  by  the  word  and  Spirit  of  God  admission 
there,  you  may  well  acquiesce  in  that  appointment  that 
allots  you  so  few  days  below  ;  and  see,  without  concern, 
days  and  seasons  rolling  away,  that  bring  you  nearer  a 
better  and  more  ending  home. 

"  They'll  waft  us  sooner  o'er 

This  life's  tempestuous  sea: 
Soon  we  shall  reach  the  peaceful  shore 
Of  blest  eternity." 

Again  ;  we  may  learn  from  this  subject  to  be  reconciled 
to  our  departure,  out  of  the  world  in  the  painful  manner  of 
death. 

The  manner  in  which  man  leaves  his  present  habitation 
by  death,  invests  that  future  unknown  period  of  his  being 
with  terrors  from  which  we  all  instinctively  shrink.  The 
pangs  of  dissolution,  and  the  silence  of  the  dead,  from 
whom  no  voice  of  information  reaches  us — the  terrors  of 
what  is  seen,  and  the  uncertainties  respecting  what  is 
unseen, — render  the  event  one  of  gloom,  which  cannot  be 
penetrated  except  by  the  light  of  revelation.  We  look  at 
the  event  as  exhibiting  in  God  the  frowns  of  his  dis- 
pleasure ;  and  our  terror  of  the  conflict  is  allayed,  only  by 
the  faith  that  sees  beyond  the  shades  of  death  a  Redeemer 
ready  to  admit  us  to  the  enduring  city  of  God.  If  we  are 
so  happy  as  to  enter  that  blessed  place,  we  shall,  when 
from  its  heights  of  salvation  we  look  back  on  the  dark 

25 


1 86  A  Continuing  City  to  Come. 


passage  of  death,  feel  forever  satisfied  that  God  the 
Saviour  was  leading  us  in  the  right  way  to  a  city  of 
habitation.  The  pangs  of  dissolution  were  only  giving 
exercise  to  that  submissive  love  that  glows  eternally  in 
the  heavens  ;  a  body  unfit  for  immortality  was  laid  aside, 
to  be  resumed  again  incorruptible  and  glorious  ;  the  dy- 
ing groan  scarcely  ceased,  before  the  songs  of  victory 
arose  ;  and  rising,  though  with  the  desert  of  hell,  out  of 
all  conflicts  to  a  habitation  among  the  myriads  of  the 
holy,  was  almost  an  annihilation  of  death,  a  swallowing 
of  it  up  in  victory  and  immortality. 

If  your  residence  here  below,  then,  must  be  left  with 
struggles,  the  jovs  of  entrance  into  that  above  will  oblit- 
erate the  pain  ;  and  if  you  are  seeking  entrance  there  by 
following  the  word  and  Spirit  of  Christ,  you  may  learn  to 
acquiesce  in  the  thought  of  your  departure  ;  and  not  to 
fear  the  lapse  of  time,  which,  while  it  brings  you  nearer 
the  last  conflict,  brings  you  nearer  also  to  the  final  and 
endless  victory. 

Amid  the  trials  of  the  present  time,  the  brevity  and 
uncertain  continuance  of  life,  and  the  daily  progress  of  all 
towards  the  grave,  they  who  are  seeking  a  heavenly 
country  then  need  not  fear.  Omnipotence  speaks  the 
word  of  promise  from  heaven,  and  reaches  forth  to  them 
the  arm  of  assistance,  and  points  to  companions  above. 
"  Hold  fast  then,  brethren,  your  confidence,  which  hath 
great  recompense  of  reward."  "  Hope  to  the  end,  for  the 
grace  that  is  to  be  brought  unto  you  at  the  revelation  of 
Jesus  Christ." 

"  Cease,  ye  pilgrims,  cease  to  mourn  ; 

Press  onward  to  the  prize. 
Soon  our  Saviour  will  return, 

Triumphant  in  the  skies. 
Yet  a  season,  and  you  know 

Happy  entrance  will  be  given  : 
All  our  sorrows  left  below, 

And  earth  exchanged  for  heaven." 

And  will  that  day  of  glory  come  ?  Shall  they  who 
follow  their  Saviour  here  have  entrance  given  them  into 


A  Continuing  City  to  Come.  187 


the  everlasting  joys  of  their  Lord  ?  .  What  hopes  then  are 
theirs !  What  joys  will  be  theirs  when  they  shall  be 
introduced  as  happy  members  into  that  heavenly  Jeru- 
salem, which  is  filled  with  such  countless  multitudes  of 
beings  of  glorious  orders,  actuated  by  perfect  love, 
engaged  in  the  sweetest  employments,  and  secure  in 
their  joys  through  eternity  !  To  spend  the  days  of  eter- 
nity in  that  central  residence  of  God,  where  his  glories 
eclipse  all  these  starry  worlds,  the  mere  suburbs  of  his 
celestial  city.  To  glow  with  mental  energies  and  love 
and  adoration  increasing  through  eternal  years  !  How 
glorious  a  termination  of  our  cares  and  tears  and  faith 
below  ! 

And  what  must  the  loss  be  to  him  who  exhausts  his 
heart  on  this  abode  ;  who  obeys  not  the  gospel  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  seeks  not  to  partake  of  his  hea- 
venly calling !  His  doom  is  already  written.  Banish- 
ment, with  everlasting  destruction,  from  the  presence  of 
the  Lord  and  the  glory  of  his  power  !  What  loss  !  when, 
torn  from  the  joys  of  this  abode — a  fleeting  dream — all 
happiness  below  for  ever  past — he  gazes  on  that  glorious 
residence  where  millions  of  celestial  spirits  dwell  in  love 
and  adoration ;  and  finds  its  gates  forever  barred  upon 
him,  and  his  eternity  to  be  passed  with  a  few  apostate 
angels  and  the  lost  of  Adam's  race,  in  the  mere  prison 
house  of  this  universe. 

My  friends,  travelling  to  eternity,  in  prospect  of  the 
approaching  year  I  can  but  wish  you  all  a  year  of  life, 
health,  and  spiritual  and  temporal  happiness.  But  you 
begin  it  in  a  world  of  uncertainties.  Its  record  will 
doubtless  place  some  name  among  us  on  the  roll  of 
death.  Where  is  he?  Who  is  he?  Whose  fate  is 
sealed  the  present  year  ?  Is  he  seeking  now  a  city  which 
hath  foundations  ?  Is  he  clinging  to  this  world  ?  Oh 
could  I  now  unroll  the  record  of  divine  decrees,  and  shew 
him  to  himself  so  soon  to  die,  might  it  not  stir  him  up  to 


1 88  A  Continuing  City  to  Come. 


preparation  for  eternity  ?  In  these  uncertainties,  blessed 
be  the  Saviour,  he  calls  you  all  to  hear  his  word  of 
grace.  Rise  up  then  at  his  command.  Obey  his  call. 
Forsake  the  world,  and  seek  a  better  country  far, — the 
city  of  his  presence  and  eternal  love.  On  the  way  he 
calls  you,  go ;  and  the  year  will  be  a  year  of  happiness, 
whether  you  spend  it  here,  in  these  scenes  of  time,  or  in 
the  city  of  your  God  above.  But  ah,  if  clinging  to  this 
world  you  die,  it  will  be  a  year — an  age — a  whole  eter- 
nity— of  woe  !  So  soon  ?  So  nigh  ?  So  thoughtless  ?  Yet 
I  tell  thee,  sinner,  now,  that  when  I  meet  thee  at  the  gates 
of  death,  and  on  the  passway  to  eternity,  I  may  not  need 
to  tell  thee  then,  PREPARE  ! 


CHRIST   PRECIOUS    TO   BELIEVERS 


I.  PETER  II  :  7. 

UNTO    YOU    THEREFORE    WHICH    BELIEVE,    HE    IS    PRECIOUS. 

THE  coming  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  flesh  was  an  event 
of  great  joy  to  our  world.  An  act  of  astonishing  mercy 
on  his  part,  fulfilling  the  hopes  inspired  for  ages  in  Israel, 
the  pledge  of  a  treaty  of  peace  both  honorable  to  God 
and  consoling  to  man, — it  was  meet  to  be  heralded  forth 
by  heavenly  attendants  as  glad  tidings  of  great  joy  to 
all  people. 

Yet  when  we  see  his  humiliations  in  the  flesh,  and  trace 
him  on  his  way  of  poverty  and  reproach  and  suffering  for 
our  sins,  and  witness  the  agonies  of  Gethsemane  and  Cal- 
vary— when  we  see  how  his  offers  of  mercy  are  rejected 
by  a  thoughtless  world,  who  only  take  license  from  his 
long-suffering  to  be  more  bold  in  sin,  it  becomes  us  to  see 
that  our  joy  in  his  coming  be  placed  on  the  right  grounds. 

The  joy,  though  offered  to  all,  is  truly  participated  in 
only  by  those,  who  in  their  need  and  guilt  resort  to  him  as 
their  Saviour,  who  yield  themselves  to  his  instruction  and 
care,  and  depend  on  his  grace  for  perfect  restoration  to 
the  favor  and  service  and  kingdom  of  God.  They  see  in 
their  own  experience  how  precious  he  is,  and  join  with 
the  heavenly  hosts  in  desiring  all  nations  to  hear  the  glad 
tidings  of  his  grace,  and  earnestly  pray  that  their  de- 
praved and  guilty  fellow-men  may  be  partakers  with 
them  in  like  precious  faith. 

Such  was  the  joy  of  Peter,  when  he  addressed  his  fellow 
Christians  in  the  text,  "  Unto  you  therefore  which  believe, 
he  is  precious."  At  that  time  he  felt  that  he  owed  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  the  obligations  of  a  rebel  humbled  and 


190  Christ  Precious  to  Believers. 


forgiven,  of  a  backslider  reclaimed  and  restored,  and  of  a 
believer  confirmed  in  his  faith  and  devotedness  and  joyful 
in  the  assured  hope  of  future  glory.  By  his  own  experi- 
ence he  had  learned  that  Christ,  who  visited  our  world 
from  the  throne  of  heaven  on  the  embassy  of  redemption, 
was  in  all  respects  suited  and  adequate  to  his  spiritual 
wants. 

His  fellow  Christians  too,  he  knew  could  unite,  with  his, 
their  testimony  to  the  preciousness  of  Christ.  He  could 
confidently  address  them  :  "  Unto  you  which  believe,  he 
is  precious." 

The  value  of  Christ  to  himself  and  his  fellow  Christians, 
he  places  in  this  one  comprehensive  consideration :  that 
CHRIST  is  A  SAVIOUR  ADEQUATE  TO  ALL  THE  WANTS  OF 
BELIEVERS.  Peter  learns  his  preciousness  from  this  one 
extensive  promise  :  "  He  that  believeth  on  him  shall  not 
be  confounded."  Shall  not  be  disappointed  in  his  hopes. 
Therefore  is  it,  he  adds,  that  to  believers  he  is  precious. 

I  shall  manage  the  subject  then  in  its  true  light,  if  I 
exhibit  to  you  the  believer,  and  the  adequacy  of  Christ 
to  his  wants. 

I.  Who  then  is  the  believer? 

Peter  describes  believers  in  a  passage  immediately 
preceding  the  text,  and  to  that  description  we  will  now 
look  for  an  answer  to  our  question.  According  to  his 
description,  believers  are  those  who  have  "  tasted  that 
the  Lord  is  gracious."  They  are  those,  who  by  their 
belief  bring  the  great  object  of  faith  home  to  their 
own  experience ;  who  not  only  believe  that  Christ  the 
Lord  offers  grace  to  their  acceptance,  but  who  come  to 
him  personally  and  in  faith,  to  accept  and  to  taste  his 
grace.  They  make  real  in  their  own  feelings  the  truth  of 
his  gracious  words  in  the  gospel.  They  give  reality  to 
divine  truth  and  yield  their  hearts  to  its  deep  and  sacred 
impressions.  They  believe  with  the  heart.  Such  is  the 
mode  in  which  they  believe. 

The  great  object  on  which  their  faith  terminates,  accord- 
ing to  this  description  of  Peter,  is  Christ  in  his  character  of 
a  Saviour.  They  taste  that  the  Lord  is  gracious ;  the  Lord 


Christ  Precious  to  Believers.  191 


Christ,  who  is  said,  in  the  immediate  connection,  to  be  disal- 
lowed of  men  but  chosen  of  God  and  precious.  The  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  has  undertaken  the  work  of  a  Saviour,  to  turn 
his  believing  people  from  sin  and  Satan  unto  God.  He  is 
the  Captain  of  Salvation  ;  the  Head  of  the  Church  ;  the 
exalted  Prince  of  Israel,  to  whom  the  penitent  in  all  ages 
have  looked  for  redemption. 

The  believer  then  places  his  reliance  on  Christ ;  and  on 
Christ  as  gracious  :  a  Saviour  bestowing  an  unmerited  and 
a  free  salvation.  With  him  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  grace 
from  Christ ;  the  whole  family  of  the  redeemed,  the  king- 
dom of  his  grace.  To  believe  on  Christ,  then,  is  to 
believe  the  doctrines  which 'Christ  teaches  in  his  word; 
or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  those  principles  of  grace  on 
which  Christ  proceeds  in  relation  to  our  world  and  in  the 
establishment  of  his  kingdom  of  redemption. 

Among  the  truths  of  his  word  which  are  illustrated  in 
that  kingdom,  or  which  enter  into  the  belief  and  experi- 
ence of  the  believer,  the  following  seem  to  be  funda- 
mental. 

1.  That    men    are    immortal.     Christ    has  brought    this 
truth  into  clear  light  by  his  coming.     He  has  not  merely 
asserted  it,   with  a  plainness   not  to  be  misapprehended  ; 
but  confirmed  his  assertions,  by  miracles,  by  the  resurrec- 
tion of  others,   and  by  his  own  resurrection   as  the  first 
fruits  of  the   sleeping  dead.     I  say    that  this  is  a  funda- 
mental   truth    in    the    kingdom    of  Christ ;    because   that 
kingdom  is  eternal.     This  truth  the  believer  admits,  and 
commits  his  immortal  soul  to  the  keeping  of  Christ  as  the 
true  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  souls. 

Another  essential  truth,  included  in  believing  on  Christ, 
is,— 

2.  That  men  are  under  the  power  and  guilt  of  sin.     They 
are  not  merely  immortal ;  but  in  consequence  of  the  fall, 
their  immortal  existence,  unless  redemption   is  found,   is 
involved  in  sin  and  misery. 

This  is  a  truth  which  Christ  maintains  in  his  word  ;  and 
it  is  an  important  principle  on  which  he  conducts,  in  estab- 
lishing a  kingdom  of  grace.  On  this  principle  he  acted, 


192  Christ  Precious  to  Believers. 


when  he  assumed  our  humble  nature,  and  died  on  the 
cross  in  order  to  conduct  his  followers  to  glory.  Were 
we,  as  prospectively  seen  by  him,  innocent  beings,  or  were 
our  guilt  trifling,  what  need  was  there  of  his  appearing 
on  earth  and  pouring  out  his  precious  blood  a  sacrifice? 
A  race  of  innocent  beings  could  receive  sufficient  i)istrue- 
tion  from  his  messengers.  Unless  we  are  sinners  and  justly 
exposed  to  endless  miseries,  why  does  the  Gospel  pro- 
claim the  glad  news  of  a  Saviour?  A  Saviour  from  what? 
Not  from  annihilation  surely  ;  for  we  were  already  im- 
mortal. Why  else,  too,  is  the  erection  of  a  kingdom  of 
endless  holiness  and  happiness  among  men,  an  act  of 
grace  ?  There  is  no  grace,  surely,  in  sustaining  and  bless- 
ing forever  a  race  of  holy  beings.  On  what  other  princi- 
ple than  our  depravity,  too,  does  Christ  make  the 
universal  call  on  men  to  repent,  that  iniquity  be  not  their 
everlasting  ruin  ? 

Now  the  believer  admits  this  truth,  and  brings  it  home 
to  his  feelings.  He  has  read  it  in  his  own  experience. 
He  sees  in  some  measure  the  infinite  amiableness  of  the 
divine  character,  and  the  astonishing  hardness  of  his  own 
depraved  heart.  He  sees  and  feels  his  depravity  to  be  an 
immense  evil.  With  shame  and  sorrow  over  it,  and  with 
heartfelt  renunciation  of  it,  he  turns  to  God  in  Christ  for 
redemption. 

Another  truth,  essentially  connected  with  believing  on 
Christ,  is— 

3.  That  his  death  is  the  only  ground  of  pardon.  The 
believer  relies  on  the  atonement  of  Jesus  for  justification. 

That  his  death  is  the  only  sufficient  atonement  for  sin, 
is  proclaimed  by  the  very  fact,  that  in  instituting  a  king- 
dom of  grace  he  chose  this  method  of  pardon.  "  He 
died  for  our  sins."  For  our  rebellion  against  the  right- 
eous government  of  Jehovah,  he  laid  down  his  life.  Now 
Christ  acted,  in  making  this  sacrifice,  on  the  principle,  that 
his  death  only  could  make  amends  to  the  honor  of  the 
violated  law  :  that,  without  it,  there  could  be  no  remission 
of  our  offenses.  The  believer,  then,  admits  this  truth 
and  brings  it  home  to  his  feelings.  He  despairs  of  his 


Clirist  Precious  to  Believers.  193 


own  righteousness,  or  of  any  other  pardon,  than  that 
which  is  freely  received  at  a  throne  of  grace  through 
the  blood  of  Jesus.  An  immortal  being,  perishing  in  sin, — 
he  feels  his  need  of  pardon  from  his  God  ;  and  he  receives 
peace  of  conscience,  only  by  humbly  approaching  God 
for  it,  in  reliance  on  the  blood  of  Christ. 

Another  truth  included  in  believing  on  Christ,  is, 

4.  That  his  power  must  sanctify.  The  believer  seeks,  for 
his  spiritual  recovery,  the  influence  of  his  Spirit. 

The  whole  work  of  salvation  is  in  his  hands.  He  is  a 
Saviour,  not  only  on  the  ground  of  his  merits,  but  by  means 
of  his  power.  When,  after  his  crucifixion,  he  arose  from 
death  and  ascended  on  high,  he  was  exalted  to  the  throne 
to  give  repentance  unto  Israel.  By  his  Spirit  he  draws 
men  unto  him.  He  has  declared  his  kingdom  to  be  a 
kingdom  of  holiness,  established  by  his  Spirit.  They  who 
belong  to  his  kingdom,  are  born  of  the  Spirit ;  they  are 
led  by  the  word  and  influence  of  the  Spirit ;  they  walk  in 
the  precepts  and  power  of  the  Spirit.  The  Spirit  of  life 
in  Christ  Jesus  makes  them  free  from  the  dominion  of  sin 
and  death.  Now  the  believer  admits  this  truth,  and 
brings  it  home  to  his  feelings.  He  goes  with  supplication 
to  Christ,  to  receive  grace  to  help  in  time  of  need.  With- 
out the  power  of  Christ,  he  can  do  nothing  to  overcome 
his  spiritual  foes.  Would  he  succeed  in  the  Christian 
warfare?  Fie  must  be  clothed  with  the  armor  of  God. 
Would  he  be  strong  ?  He  must  be  so  in  the  Lord  and 
the  power  of  his  might.  Would  he  have  hope  ?  He 
looks  to  the  God  of  hope  to  fill  him  with  joy  and  peace 
in  believing,  that  he  may  abound  in  hope.  Would  he  have 
eternal  life  ?  It  must  be  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus 
Christ.  Deeply  impressed  with  this  truth,  he  goes,  a 
needy  and  humble  supplicant,  and  seeks  from  Christ  his 
sanctification  and  eternal  redemption. 

II.  From  this  brief  contemplation  of  the  believer,  we 
turn  now  to  inquire  why  he  esteems  Christ  to  be  precious. 

The  comprehensive  reason  is  stated  by  Peter  in  the  con- 
text, in  which  he  quotes  from  Isaiah  xxviii :  16,  this  exten- 
sive promise :  "  Behold  I  lay  in  Zion  a  chief  corner-stone, 

26 


194  Christ  Precious  to  Believers. 


elect,  precious ;  and  he  that  believeth  on  him  shall  not  be 
confounded."  He  who  looks  in  true  faith  to  this  Saviour 
will  never  be  disappointed  in  his  hopes.  He  will  find  in 
him  all  suitable  and  adequate  supply  for  his  spiritual 
and  immortal  wants.  "  Therefore,"  adds  the  apostle, 
"  unto  you  that  believe,  is  he  precious."  On  this  ac- 
count is  he  precious. 

The  believer  then  esteems  Christ  to  be  precious,  because 
he  finds  in  him  a  Saviour  in  all  respects  suited  and  ade- 
quate to  his  wants. 

The  believer  is  constantly  experiencing  wants ;  around 
him  are  temptations;  within  him,  remaining  depravity. 
Who  then  can  uphold  him  in  the  path  of  duty  but  a  pres- 
ent Saviour?  He  is  exposed  to  a  burdened  conscience; 
to  wander  in  darkness  and  be  distressed  with  apprehen- 
sion of  the  frowns  of  heaven.  Who  can  speak  peace  to 
his  troubled  spirit  but  a  present  Saviour  ?  Believers  are 
exposed  to  trials  from  an  ungodly  world ;  to  have  their 
name  cast  out  as  evil ;  to  suffer  bodily  pains  and  infirmi- 
ties ;  or  to  experience  the  loss  of  estate  or  of  friends. 
Who  can  administer  comfort  to  them  in  their  trials  but 
a  present  Saviour?  And  such  a  Saviour  is  Christ.  He 
has  left  his  promise  on  record,  that  he  will  come  and 
make  his  abode  with  believers.  His  declaration  is,  "  My 
sheep  hear  my  voice,  and  I  know  them."  I  know  who 
they  are  and  what  is  their  situation.  Not  a  contrite  sigh 
for  sin  arises  from  any  soul,  but  he  is  present  to  hear. 
Not  a  secret  emotion  of  love  to  his  cause  springs  up  in 
any  heart,  but  he  perceives  its  rising.  Not  one  cry  of 
faith  for  deliverance  is  raised  to  heaven,  but  it  reaches 
his  ears.  When  passing  through  the  fires  or  the  waters 
of  tribulation,  his  children  may  plead  the  promise,  "  I 
will  be  with  thee."  Is  not  Christ,  then,  precious  to 
the  believer,  who  is  so  very  present  a  help  in  trouble? 

Again;  believers  need  not  only  a  present,  but  a  power- 
ful Saviour. 

What  matters  it  that  Christ  is  present  to  witness  their 
wants,  if  he  has  not  power  to  relieve  ? 


CJirist  Precious  to  Believers.  195 


The  believer  needs  a  Saviour  powerful  enough  to  man- 
age his  heart ;  one  who  is  able  to  subdue  the  obstinacy  of 
his  depraved  will  and  corrupt  affections ;  who  can  melt  a 
heart  which  threatenings  and  promises  do  not  touch. 
Such  a  powerful  Saviour  is  Christ ;  exalted  as  King  on 
the  hill  of  Zion,  bestowing  the  heart  of  flesh  on  Israel, 
bringing  into  captivity  the  wills  of  his  people. 

The  believer  needs  a  Saviour  who  can  manage  all  the 
concerns  of  the  universe.  His  welfare  depends  on  the 
minutest  things  as  well  as  the  great.  He  needs  a  Saviour 
who  can  manage,  at  least  consistently  with  his  good,  all 
beings  and  worlds  and  events ;  who  will  not  suffer  one 
thing  to  befall  him  contrary  to  his  own  wise  and  gracious 
pleasure.  Such  a  powerful  Saviour  does  the  believer  find 
in  Jesus.  For  he  assures  his  disciples  that  all  power  in 
heaven  and  on  earth  is  in  his  hands.  He  promises  that 
all  things  shall  work  together  for  good  to  those  who  love 
him  and  are  called  according  to  his  purpose. 

The  believer  needs  a  Saviour  powerful  enough,  too,  to 
manage  his  cause  with  an  infinitely  holy  God.  He  has 
offended  the  Sovereign  of  the  universe,  whose  laws  are 
most  holy  and  just  and  good.  The  penalty  he  has  incur- 
red is  just,  and  it  is  everlasting.  Who,  then,  is  powerful 
enough  to  manage  his  cause  before  the  Infinitely  Holy 
and  Righteous  One  ?  Who  shall  stay  the  execution  of  the 
dreadful  sentence  of  his  King?  The  believer  sees  in 
Christ  his  Saviour,  the  Son  of  God  ;  in  whom  the  Father 
is  always  well  pleased  ;  whom  he  always  hears.  Such  a 
powerful  advocate  is  managing  his  cause ;  one  who  has 
laid  down  his  life  to  ransom  his  followers,  and  pleads  the 
infinite  sacrifice  above.  Shall  not  then  the  blood  of  him 
who  through  the  Eternal  Spirit  offered  himself  without 
spot  to  God,  purge  the  consciences  of  believers  from 
works  of  death  ?  They  may  now  draw  near  the  throne, 
sprinkled  from  a  guilty  conscience,  and  behold  with  joy 
the  face  of  a  forgiving  God,  and  hold  joyful  communion 
with  him  as  a  Father  reconciled  in  Christ. 

Thirdly  ;  believers  need  not  only  a  present  and  power- 
ful, but  a  compassionate  Saviour. 


196  CJirist  Precious  to  Believers. 


Not  one  who  shall  wink  at  their  sins  and  leave  them  to 
perish  ;  but  one  who  shall  be  mercifully  faithful  to  rebuke, 
reclaim,  and  forgive. 

The  believer  who  knows  the  least  of  his  own  heart, 
cannot  but  see  that  he  needs  constant  compassion  to  be 
shown  him  from  God.  He  has  long  abused  divine  grace  ; 
and,  since  the  time  when  he  was  brought  to  confide  in 
God  and  experience  the  sweet  pledges  of  pardoning 
mercy,  he  has  not  found  his  heart  perfect  with  God.  He 
sins  still ;  and  he  sins  now  against  greater  love  and 
mercy  ;  and  he  knows  that  nothing  will  answer  his  wants 
but  boundless  compassion.  Point  him  to  a  Saviour  whose 
compassions  fail,  to  a  God  whose  mercies  consume, — and 
you  drive  him  to  despair.  No  such  Saviour  can  bear 
with  his  hard,  ungrateful,  rebellious  heart.  He  must  be 
rendered  contrite  and  made  ashamed  of  his  guilt  by  a 
God,  whose  mercy  is  as  high  above  our  ways  as  the  heav- 
ens are  above  the  earth.  The  sinner,  who  has  not  seen 
the  glory  of  the  divine  character  and  government,  and 
the  vileness  of  his  own  heart,  may  not  feel  the  need  of 
compassion  in  God,  and  may,  like  the  infidel  Rosseau, 
rely  on  the  justice  of  his  Maker.  But  O  !  the  returning 
backslider,  the  broken-hearted  penitent,  can  never  find 
relief  for  his  burdened  soul  till  he  meets  a  God  of  abound- 
ing grace. 

What  had  become  of  Peter  had  not  his  Saviour  been 
compassionate  ?  Called  freely  by  Christ  to  his  service  ; 
admitted,  next  to  John,  as  his  bosom  companion  ;  one  of 
the  favored  three  who  witnessed  the  resurrection  of 
Jairus'  daughter,  and  beheld  his  glory  on  the  mount  of 
transfiguration :  and  yet,  when  his  Master  is  apprehended 
and  led  to  the  house  of  the  high  priest — in  that  time  of 
his  greatest  sufferings, — he  openly  denies  having  had  any 
connexion  with  Christ,  and  adds  to  the  crimson  guilt  of 
denial  the  dreadful  impiety  of  curses  and  oaths.  Oh, 
what  horrid  iniquity  !  Is  there  a  God  that  can  forgive  ? 
He  had  a  Saviour  who  could  compassionate  him,  who 
could  be  "  merciful  to  his  unrighteousness  ;  "  an  advocate, 
who  could  even  anticipate  his  wants ;  who,  in  full  view  of 


Christ  Precious  to  Believers.  197 


this  hardness  of  heart,  could  pray  for  him  that  his  faith 
should  not  utterly  fail. 

The  compassion  of  Christ  undertook  the  work  of  salva- 
tion, in  full  view  of  all  its  difficulties, — all  the  reproaches 
which  he  must  suffer  from  an  ungodly  world,  all  the  per- 
versities with  which  he  must  bear  in  the  hearts  of  his  own 
followers.  Nothing  unexpected  then  can  occur  to  turn 
him  aside  from  his  resolution  of  mercy.  It  is  a  motto  in 
his  kingdom  which,  however  much  abused  by  the  licen- 
tious, is  precious  to  the  humble-hearted  ;  '  once  forgiven, 
always  forgiven.'  Whom  he  once  receives  to  his  love, 
this  faithful  Shepherd  loves  and  keeps  to  the  end.  He 
shows  in  the  work  of  redemption,  that  he  has  infinite 
patience ;  and  that,  when  he  pardons,  he  pardons  like  a 
God.  "  How  shall  I  give  thee  up,  Ephraim  ;  how  shall  I 
deliver  thee,  Israel  ?  How  shall  I  make  thee  as  Admah  ? 
How  shall  I  set  thee  as  Zeboim?  My  heart  is  turned 
within  me  ;  my  repentings  are  kindled  together.  I  will 
not  execute  the  fierceness  of  my  anger ;  for  I  am  God,  and 
not  man." 

Lastly  ;  the  believer  needs  not  only  a  present,  powerful 
and  compassionate,  but  an  everlasting  Saviour. 

He  perceives  a  boundless  eternity  before  him,  and  he 
seeks  some  firm  rock  on  which  to  rest  his  everlasting 
hopes.  Where  then  shall  he  go  for  consolation  ? 

Will  you  direct  him  to  heathen  sages  or  modern  infi- 
dels? His  soul  starts  at  the  thought  of  annihilation.  He 
cannot  bear  the  idea  that,  when  called  to  close  his  eyes 
on  the  world  and  this  pleasant  creation,  his  faculties 
should  be  crushed  and  his  perceptions  and  enjoyments 
be  forever  lost.  Cold  consolation  this  to  the  heart  that 
beats  and  lives  for  immortality,  and  that  is  made  to  re- 
ceive its  happiness  only  from  the  Fount  of  Infinite  Love 
and  Being  ! 

Will  you  tell  him  to  banish  the  thought  of  futurity  ? 
Will  you  advise  him,  with  the  Epicure,  to  consult  his 
present  pleasures  and  dismiss  the  idea  of  the  future? 
'  Let  us  eat  and  drink  ;  for  to-morrow  we  die.'  He  knows 
that  these  gratifications  are  unsatisfying  to  a  rational 


198  Christ  Precious  to  Believers. 


soul.  He  knows  too,  that  time  is  bearing  him  rapidly  on 
its  current  to  eternity,  and  that  no  struggles  of  his  can 
delay  his  progress. 

Where  then,  as  he  surveys  the  prospect  of  an  endless 
existence,  shall  he  turn  for  light  and  comfort?  His  faith, 
like  that  of  Peter's,  can  find  no  support  but  in  Jesus. 
Turning  from  all  other  objects  in  the  universe,  and  look- 
ing to  Christ,  he  exclaims ;  "  to  whom,  Lord,  shall  I  go 
but  unto  thee ;  thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal  life ! " 
From  the  throne  of  Christ,  light  breaks  in  upon  his  pros- 
pects. United  in  faith  and  love  to  his  risen  and  glorified 
Saviour,  he  feels  the  joys  of  immortality  already  spring- 
ing up  in  his  soul. 

But  is  there  no  failure?  May  there  not  a  period  in 
eternity  arrive  when  this  refuge  shall  fail  me  ?  The  pos- 
sibility of  such  an  event  would  shake  the  very  basis  of 
the  Rock  of  ages.  I  shall  not  find  a  Saviour  adequate 
to  my  wants,  unless  I  find  one  who  will  watch  over  my 
existence  forever,  and  render  it  holy  and  happy.  And 
such  is  Jesus  Christ.  He  is  the  eternal  \J\ie.  They  which 
are  called  by  him,  receive  the  promise  of  an  eternal  inheri- 
tance. He  has  become  to  those  who  obey  him,  the  author 
of  eternal  salvation.  They  who  have  fled  to  him  for  a 
refuge,  have  found  a  shelter  which  shall  endure  through 
all  the  convulsions  and  all  the  agitations  of  the  moral 
universe, — so  long  as  God  is  on  the  throne,  and  the  holy 
enjoy  the  tranquility  of  his  reign.  On  this  ground  do  we 
find  the  apostles  speaking  with  such  ardor  of  the  love  of 
Christ :  it  passeth  knowledge  ;  its  riches  are  unsearchable  : 
it  constrains  them,  like  an  overwhelming  torrent,  to  pass 
through  trials  and  hardships  in  extending  his  kingdom. 
They  seem  burdened  for  words  to  express  its  height  and 
depth.  They  pray  that  their  converts  may  be  enlight- 
ened, in  order  that  they  "  may  understand  what  is  the 
hope  of  his  calling,  and  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  his 
inheritance  in  the  saints." 

Is  not  a  Saviour  then,  thus  present,  powerful,  compas- 
sionate and  eternal,  justly  esteemed  precious  by  all  his  fol- 


Clirist  Precious  to  Believers.  199 


lowers,  who  are  expecting  from  him  their  eternal  union 
to  the  kingdom  of  glory  ? 

My  Friends,  permit  me  to  inquire,  or  rather  inquire  of 
yourselves  as  in  the  presence  of  God,  is  he  your  Saviour  ? 
Do  you  believe?  Do  you  as  immortal  beings  and  as 
perishing  sinners,  feel  your  need  of  his  atoning  blood  and 
renewing  grace  ?  Have  you  ever  experienced  their  vital 
efficacy  ?  Do  you  supremely  aim  at  obedience  to  his 
will?  Do  you  habitually  approach  his  throne  of  mercy 
for  the  pardon  of  sin  and  the  joy  of  reconciliation  ?  Do 
you  depend  daily  on  his  gracious  aid  for  guidance  in 
duty,  and  for  strength  to  conquer  your  enemies  and  give 
you  the  victory? 

If  so,  then  may  you  have  seen  and  felt  something  of 
the  preciousness  of  Christ  in  this  faint  description.  You 
may  have  perceived  more  of  it  in  your  own  experience. 
But  our  powers  have  not  yet  fathomed  the  extent  of  that 
love  which  passeth  knowledge.  Be  faithful  to  Christ  and 
to  your  souls,  live  near  to  him,  and  you  shall  know  more 
of  his  excellence  as  you  advance  in  the  journey  of  this 
life.  More  of  his  preciousness  will  be  manifest  to  you, 
when  you  pass  the  valley  of  death.  More  of  it  will  be 
unfolded  to  you,  when  you  rise  to  meet  him  in  the  clouds 
of  the  air.  More  of  his  preciousness  will  beam  on  your 
souls,  while  permitted  to  pass  in  his  presence  the  ages  of  an 
eternity  to  come.  The  sweet  experience  of  his  loving- 
kindness,  the  near  view  of  his  surpassing  glory,  will  draw 
from  your  tongues  the  everlasting  song ;  "  thou  art  wor- 
thy. Thou  wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed  us  to  God  by 
thy  blood?" 

But,  to  those  who,  like  the  Jewish  builders,  disallow 
the  precious  corner-stone  which  God  hath  laid  in  Zion, 
he  is  a  stone  of  stumbling  and  rock  of  offense.  Precious 
as  he  is  to  believers,  he  is  so  to  none  else.  Indeed,  the 
very  qualities  which  render  him  precious  to  his  people, 
render  him  terrible  to  all  his  enemies.  Is  he  present  ? 
He  is  registering  their  deeds  of  guilt  in  the  book  of  his 
remembrance.  Is  he  powerful  ?  That  power,  which  man- 
ages this  mighty  universe,  will  crush  his  obstinate  foes. 


2OO  Christ  Precious  to  Believers. 


Is  he  merciful?  That  mercy,  which  crowns  Zion  with 
eternal  glories,  will  not  spare  her  persevering  adversa- 
ries. Is  he  everlasting  ?  He  will  live  forever  to  execute 
the  penalties  of  his  righteousness. 

Turn  then  to  this  Saviour,  while  you  are  prisoners  of 
hope  and  he  offers  you  life.  Come  now,  while  he  freely 
invites  you  to  enter  his  kingdom  of  grace  and  of  glory. 
He  that  believeth  on  him,  shall  never  be  confounded.  He 
that  believeth  on  him,  will  find  him  precious  both  now  and 
forever.  Can  you  not,  will  you  not,  trust  your  soul  on  his 
promises?  O,  come  to  his  cross  in  penitence  and  taste 
that  he  is  precious  ! 


NO   ORDER  IN   THE  GRAVE. 


JOB  X:  21,  22. 

I  GO  WHENCE  I  SHALL  NOT  RETURN,  EVEN  TO  THE  LAND  OF  DARKNESS  AND 
THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.  A  LAND  OF  DARKNESS,  AS  DARKNESS  ITSELF,  AND  OF 
THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH,  WITHOUT  ANY  ORDER. 

IN  this  manner  Job  spake  of  his  death  and  descent  to 
the  grave.  He  looked  on  the  grave  as  a  land  whither  he 
was  going,  and  from  which  he  should  never  come  back  to 
mingle  again  in  the  scenes  and  duties  of  this  life.  He 
regarded  it,  not  indeed  with  the  skeptic,  as  the  final  land 
of  annihilation,  but  as  the  middle  land  of  passage,  from 
which  he  was  to  go  forward  to  an  eternal  state.  For 
though  he  was  to  lie  down  till  the  scenes  of  this  world  are 
past  and  the  heavens  be  no  more,  yet,  said  he,  "  I  know 
that  my  Redeemer  liveth,  and  that  he  shall  stand  at  the 
latter  day  upon  the  earth,  and,  though  after  my  skin 
worms  destroy  this  body,  yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God." 
He  characterized  the  grave — this  middle  land — as  a  land 
*  darkened  with  the  shadows  of  death,'  where  the  body 
lies  in  the  darkness  of  insensibility,  unconscious  of  the 
pleasant  light  of  day ;  and  also,  as  a  land  in  which  is  no 
"  order,"  to  which  mankind  descend  irregularly,  without 
respect  to  any  precise  and  established  arrangement,  or 
rule  of  succession. 

It  is  the  latter  thought,  more  especially,  to  which  I 
now  design  to  call  your  attention — that  there  is  no  order, 
apparent  to  men,  in  the  demands  of  the  grave. 

To  present  the  subject  more  fully  and  clearly,  I  will 
attempt, 

I.  To  define  the  sense  in  which  the  grave  is  without 
order  ; 

II.  To  specify  some  things  in  which  this  want  of  order 
is  most  manifest ;  and, 

27 


2O2  No  Order  in  the  Grave. 


III.  To  show  the  wisdom  of  God  in  so  conducting  his 
providence  that  the  grave  should  be  thus  without  order. 

I.  In  what  sense,  then,  is  the  grave  said  to  be  "  without 
order?" 

The  expression  does  not  mean,  that  mankind  become 
the  subjects  of  death  and  the  grave  without  the  operation 
of  adequate  causes.  For,  there  are  causes  in  operation 
among  men  sufficient  to  extinguish  animal  life,  and  which 
operate,  according  to  established  laws,  in  producing 
every  instance  of  temporal  death  ;  as  truly,  as  there  are 
causes  in  the  natural  world  to  produce  the  regular  vicissi- 
tudes of  day  and  night  and  of  the  seasons. 

Nor,  again,  does  the  expression  mean,  that  these  causes 
operate  by  chance,  without  the  supervision  and  control  of 
the  Creator.  For  he  holds  all  the  secondary  causes  which 
operate  in  his  kingdom  in  his  hands,  directing  and  turning 
them  according  to  his  own  will.  Nor  are  the  causes  of 
temporal  death,  any  more  than  others,  excepted  from  his 
control.  Sickness,  disease,  violence,  and  even  what  we 
call  the  accidents  of  life,  come  and  go,  at  his  bidding  or 
by  his  permission  ;  and,  when  it  is  his  pleasure,  come  with 
sufficient  force  to  extinguish  temporal  life. 

But  the  expression  means,  that  the  causes  which  operate 
to  produce  temporal  death  are  so  controlled  by  the  Lord, 
as  that  the  result  is  destitute  of  any  regularity,  or  without 
any  order  apparent  and  visible  to  man  :  breaking  in  upon,  and 
disturbing,  more  or  less,  every  plan  and  system  of 
arrangement  adopted  among  the  living.  The  irregu- 
larity in  this  case,  though  not  the  same,  may  be  illus- 
trated by  that  of  the  drawing  of  the  lot ;  the  result  of 
.which  is  not  without  the  operation  of  precise  and  suffi- 
cient causes,  nor  causes  removed  beyond  the  supervision 
and  control  of  God :  but  yet  it  depends  on  no  known 
principle  of  order,  on  which  man  can  fix  the  calculation  of 
certainty.  Just  so  in  the  selection  of  the  subjects  of 
death  from  among  the  living,  there  is  no  one  principle 
followed,  apparent  to  man,  by  which  he  can  fix  the  cer- 
tainty, as  he  can  in  those  parts  of  nature  where  order  is 
established  on  known  and  precise  laws. 


No  Order  in  the  Grave.  203 


But  I  proceed, 

II.  To  specify  some  things  in  which  this  want  of  order 
is  most  manifest. 

In  the  selection  made  from  the  living,  there  is  no  order 
in  respect  to  age.  If  death  were  fixed  for  all  the  indi- 
viduals of  our  race  at  one  precise  period  of  life,  never 
occurring  before  or  deferred  beyond  its  arrival,  there 
would  then  be  manifest,  in  regard  to  the  event,  the  order 
of  time — the  particular  order  of  age.  But  such  an  order 
is  broken  up  and  wholly  destroyed  by  the  process  of  the 
grave.  Alike  from  its  dark  halls  are  the  summons  issued, 
to  take  from  the  living  the  infant,  the  little  child,  the 
maturing  youth,  the  full-grown  man,  the  man  of  hoary 
age ;  and  down  to  its  chambers  they  descend  together  in 
promiscuous  ranks,  and  take  their  station  side  by  side, 
totally  regardless  of  age. 

Again :  there  is  no  order  apparent,  in  respect  to  the 
character  of  those  who  are  selected.  We  can  see  no  plan 
adopted  which  proceeds  at  all  on  the  principle  of  char- 
acter, either  in  respect  to  its  usefulness  or  perniciousness 
to  the  living,  or  to  its  fitness  or  unfitness  for  happiness  in 
another  life.  The  good  and  useful  are  not  all  spared  to 
old  age.  The  evil  and  injurious  are  not  all  cut  down  in 
earlier  life.  The  youthful  Christian,  and  the  venerable 
disciple  who  has  spent  his  days  in  the  service  of  his  Lord, 
the  youthful  trangressor  just  entered  on  the  stage  of  life, 
and  the  hardened  offender  grown  old  in  his  crimes,  yield- 
ing to  the  summons  of  death,  march,  side  by  side,  to  the 
dark  and  shadowy  land  of  the  grave. 

Again :  there  is  no  order  in  the  grave,  in  respect  to  the 
station  of  those  who  are  taken.  Every  principle  of  order, 
in  relation  to  station  in  the  family,  in  the  church,  or  in  the 
state,  is  broken  in  upon  by  the  demands  of  the  grave. 
The  parent  is  not  spared  for  his  importance  to  the  house- 
hold, or  the  pastor  on  account  of  his  flock,  or  the  ruler  on 
account  of  his  subjects;  but  alike  parents  and  children, 
pastors  and  their  people,  rulers  and  their  subjects,  go 
down  together  to  the  land  of  silence,  and  dwell,  side  by 
side,  in  their  narrow  mansions. 


2O4  No  Order  in  the  Grave. 


Again  :  there  is  no  order  in  the  grave,  in  respect  to  the 
previous  health  of  its  subjects.  The  weak  and  feeble  are 
not  selected  in  preference  to  the  strong  and  vigorous. 
The  debility  of  one  does  not  necessarily  subject  him  to 
the  immediate  call  of  disease  and  death  ;  nor  the  vigor  of 
another  certainly  exempt  him  from  its  sudden  approach. 
Both  alike  and  indiscriminately  are  spared,  or  fall  the 
victims  of  fatal  disease,  accident  or  violence ;  and  pass 
together  to  the  land  of  silence. 

Once  more  :  there  is  no  order  in  the  grave,  in  respect  to 
the  manner  in  which  its  subjects  are  summoned  out  of  life. 
We  might  suppose  one  invariable  mode  adopted  in  respect 
to  the  departure  of  all  to  the  grave.  But  no  such  prin- 
ciple of  regularity  is  at  all  followed.  The  diseases  and 
causes  which  take  men  out  of  life  differ  exceedingly,  in 
regard  to  the  certainty  with  which  they  operate,  the  pain 
which  they  occasion,  the  time  in  which  they  continue. 
One  disease  is  no  sooner  fastened  on  the  system  than  it  is 
known  that  death  must  follow,  and  all  hope  of  recovery 
is  forever  extinguished.  Another  disease  goes  forward  , 
insidiously  to  its  work,  not  destroying  the  hope  of  re- 
covery, it  may  be,  till  death  itself  suddenly  announces 
its  presence.  One  person  lies  the  subject  of  a  long  and 
lingering  consumption,  while  another,  by  the  bursting  of 
a  blood-vessel,  the  stoppage  of  the  heart,  or  by  apoplexy, 
falls  suddenly  and  without  warning  from  the  vigor  of 
health  into  the  arms  of  death.  There  is  no  regularity,  no 
settled  plan,  according  to  which  the  grave  summons  its 
subjects  away  from  life  :  but  alike  the  long-forewarned 
and  the  suddenly-called,  pass  together  into  its  dark 
domains. 

In  these  various  respects,  there  is  a  total  disregard  of 
all  appearance  of  regularity  and  plan  in  the  demands 
which  come  up  to  the  living  from  the  shadowy  realms  of 
death.  Let  us  now  consider,  as  was  proposed, 

III.  The  wisdom   of  God   in  so  conducting  his  provi- 
dence that  there  should  be  no  manifest  order  in  the  grave. 
In  the  midst  of  all   this  apparent  irregularity,  there  is 
indeed  a  general   plan  pursued  in  one  respect :  that  all 


No  Order  in  the  Grave.  205 


mankind  in  their  respective  generations  are  removed 
from  this  world  in  the  one  way  of  temporal  death.  Re- 
specting the  wisdom  of  God  in  this  general  plan  of  pro- 
cedure, I  shall  not  now  speak.  But  taking  it  for  granted 
that  this  way  of  removing  our  race  from  the  world  is 
wise,  I  am  to  speak  more  particularly  of  the  wisdom  of 
accomplishing  the  removal  without  any  obvious  and 
fixed  rules  of  order. 

Now,  though  we  may  not  be  able  to  discover  all  the 
positive  reasons  of  wisdom  which  exist  for  this  irregular- 
ity, or  to  trace  those  which  we  can  discern  out  to  their 
full  extent,  we  shall  at  least  see  evidence  of  wisdom,  if  we 
find  that  any  ends,  important  to  God  and  his  kingdom, 
are  dependent  on  it,  which  could  not  be  obtained  by  the 
opposite  course  of  adhering  to  rules  of  known  and  strict 
order. 

Now,  the  present  irregularity  arises  from  the  plan  of 
varying  the  time  and  manner  of  removing  individuals 
from  the  world  by  temporal  death  :  and  the  only  alterna- 
tive which  exists  in  the  case,  is  between  a  plan  confined 
to  one  invariable  time  and  manner  in  all  cases,  and  a 
plan  open  to  variation  of  time  and  manner :  between  per- 
fect regularity  of  time  and  manner  in  these  respects,  and 
irregularity  :  and  between  these  plans  the  choice  lies. 

With  this  general  view  of  the  ground  on  which  we 
proceed  in  the  inquiry,  I  remark  that  the  following  ends 
of  wisdom  are  clearly  dependent  on  the  present  course  of 
providence,  which  could  not  be  obtained  without  it. 

i.  The  care  of  human  life  itself  is  made  to  enter  as  an 
element  into  our  present  state  of  probation. 

The  use  of  all  lawful  means  for  the  preservation  of  our 
own  lives  and  the  lives  of  others  around  us,  is  in  this  way 
devolved  on  us  as  an  imperious  duty  :  and  this  particular 
duty  is  thus  made  to  enter,  as  a  part,  into  that  system  of 
duties  which  constitutes  our  trial,  and  is  to  form  and 
manifest  our  character.  That  this  is  a  consequence  of  the 
present  plan  of  providence,  is  at  once  obvious.  For  the 
means  by  which  life  is  supported,  by  which  it  is  defended 
from  violence,  or  subjected  to  it,  by  which  it  is  guarded 


206  No  Order  in  the  Grave. 


from  the  attacks  or  the  fatal  progress  of  disease,  or 
exposed  to  them,  are  now,  to  a  limited  extent,  entrusted 
to  our  hands.  And  by  these  means,  to  the  extent  they 
are  entrusted  to  us,  are  we  tried  in  respect  to  our  volun- 
tary care  of  life.  The  precious  deposit  is  left  with  us  by 
the  Creator,  under  the  solemn  injunction  of  his  authority, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  kill."  And,  in  their  treatment  of  this 
deposit,  mankind  will  be  proved  and  tried  as  the  faithful 
servants  of  God,  the  negligent  and  the  careless,  or  the 
violent  and  murderous.  I  say,  this  care  of  life  in  our- 
selves and  others  is  devolved  on  us  as  a  duty,  under  the 
present  procedure  of  providence  only.  For,  if  the  oppo- 
site course  were  adopted  by  the  Creator,  to  remove  men 
from  life  invariably  at  a  regular  time  and  in  a  uniform  and 
regular  manner,  the  present  laws  of  animal  life  must  be 
altered  or  suspended  in  their  operation,  and  he  would  take 
the  care  of  life  wholly  out  of  the  hands  of  man  into  his 
own  hands.  The  continuance  of  life  and  its  termination, 
would  have  no  more  connection  with  the  care  and  con- 
duct of  men,  than  have  now  the  movements  of  planetary 
worlds,  the  revolution  of  the  seasons,  the  rise  of  the  tides, 
the  succession  of  day  and  night :  so  that  it  is  only  under 
the  present  system  of  irregularity,  in  which  the  causes  of 
death  are  to  a  certain  extent  entrusted  to  man,  that  the 
care  of  life  is  entrusted  to  his  hands,  and  comprised 
among  the  duties  which  constitute  his  probation  for  eter- 
nity. Nor  does  it  need  labored  argument  to  show  that, 
while  this  life  is  constituted  a  scene  of  probation  for  the 
formation  of  character  in  reference  to  a  coming  eternity, 
it  is  wise  to  devolve  on  man  the  care  of  so  precious  an 
interest  as  that  of  the  continuance  of  life  in  himself  and 
others,  and  to  constitute  it  one  of  the  means  of  his  trial. 
For  this  interest  is  thus  put  on  a  harmonious  footing  with 
all  his  other  interests,  each  of  which  is  made  so  far  depen- 
dent on  his  agency,  as  to  appeal  to  his  feelings,  to  impose 
on  him  a  duty  ;  to  constitute  a  trial,  in  which  his  character 
is  formed  and  tested :  and  it  favors  more  strongly  the  cul- 
tivation of  respect  to  the  will  of  God,  and  benevolent 
affection  towards  our  fellow-creatures,  to  have  so  precious 


No  Order  in  the  Grave.  207 


an  interest  of  humanity  devolved  in  some  measure  upon 
our  care.  Just  as  in  entrusting  the  Gospel  to  the  hands 
of  men,  as  the  means  on  which  the  spiritual  and  eternal 
life  of  the  race  depends,  the  care  of  that  high  and  ever- 
lasting interest  is  devolved  on  us  who  receive  the  Gospel 
as  a  means  of  trial,  and  a  most  powerful  call  addressed  to 
our  hearts  to  enter  into  fellowship  with  Christ  in  his  love 
to  God  and  compassion  to  the  guilty,  by  publishing  the 
Gospel  of  his  grace  abroad  in  all  lands  to  every  creature. 

Again, 

2.  The  present  course  of  providence  renders  the  call  on 
man,  to  attend  to  the  duties  of  his  passing  probation,  more 
pungent. 

For  now  the  probabilities  of  continued  life,  gathered 
from  the  general  course  of  providence,  are  sufficiently 
strong,  to  remove  from  man  an  absorbing  and  overwhelm- 
ing fear  of  immediate  death.  He  has  a  sufficient  pros- 
pect of  continued  life,  to  allow  him  to  give  his  earnest 
attention  and  interested  feelings  continually  to  his  pres- 
ent duties,  by  means  of  which  alone  he  can  avail  himself 
of  the  true  privileges  of  his  probation,  and  form  a  char- 
acter of  diligent  devotion  to  God  and  to  the  interests  of 
his  fellow-creatures — the  true  preparation  for  eternal 
blessedness.  But  while,  on  this  hand,  the  probability  of 
continued  life  is  sufficiently  strong,  to  free  his  mind  from 
that  distracting  and  overwhelming  fear  of  death,  which 
would  prevent  hearty  attention  to  his  spiritual  duties, — 
while  the  probability  is  sufficiently  strong,  to  allow  him 
to  give  his  supreme  attention  to  them, — there  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  possibility  of  his  being  called  away  at 
any  moment,  which  constitutes  a  most  loud  and  imperious 
call  upon  him,  not  to  loiter  away  in  worldliness  and  sin 
the  passing  moments  of  his  day  of  grace.  The  irregular- 
ity of  the  very  manner  of  death  too,  as  well  as  of  the  time, 
not  only  rebukes  the  presumption  of  delaying  attention  to 
his  duties  to  future  years  and  times,  but  of  waiting  even 
for  the  monitions  of  disease.  For  it  is  possible  that 
disease  may  be  short  and  hasty  in  its  work,  leaving  him 
no  time  for  preparation  ;  it  may  be  too  violent  and  for- 


208  No  Order  in  the  Grave. 


cible  to  permit  the  exercise  of  his  rational  faculties,  or, 
hidden,  internal  and  unfelt  in  its  subtle  approaches,  it  may 
strike  him  down  instantly  while  in  the  full  career  of  life. 
The  possibility  of  instant  death,  and  a  death  of  which  he 
is  unwarned,  therefore,  calls  imperiously  upon  him  to 
address  himself  immediately  to  the  great  duties  of  this 
life :  to  be  instant  in  season  and  out  of  season  in  the  great 
work,  which  alone  will  fit  him  for  happiness  in  another 
world.  To  this  voice  of  providence  the  Saviour  appealed, 
when  calling  on  man  to  make  the  preparation.  "  Be  ye 
ready:  for  in  such  an  hour  as  ye  think  not,  the  Son  of 
Man  cometh/' 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  a  system  of  regularity  were 
adhered  to,  all  this  influence  to  favor  the  calls  to  prepara- 
tion for  another  life  would  be  lost.  The  entire  certainty 
which  would  occupy  every  mind  in  respect  to  the  precise 
age  and  manner  of  removal  would,  in  the  earlier  periods 
of  human  life,  too  strongly  facilitate  the  presumption  in 
man  of  neglecting  the  duties  of  this  state,  and  giving  him- 
self to  the  pleasures  of  the  world,  and  with  the  increased 
worldliness  and  hardness  of  heart  nourished  within  him  in 
this  presumptuous  career,  his  unwillingness  be  increased 
to  address  himself  to  the  duties  of  religion  and  prepara- 
tion for  eternity,  until,  finding  himself  on  the  brink  of 
removal,  he  should  wake  up,  at  the  last  hour,  like  the 
criminal  condemned  to  execution,  only  to  be  absorbed 
with  the  fears  of  death  and  the  terrors  of  despair.  Such 
at  least  we  can  see  to  be  the  tendency  of  such  a  system  on 
such  a  being  as  man — a  being  who  is  inclined  to  such  a 
course  even  now,  amid  all  the  present  powerful  monitions 
of  providence  to  the  contrary. 

Is  it  not  wise,  then,  on  the  part  of  God,  to  proceed,  in 
the  removal  of  man  from  the  world,  in  a  way  which  ever 
renders  the  grave  so  powerful  a  preacher  ;  calling  alike 
on  the  young,  the  mature,  the  aged— on  man  at  every 
point  and  station  in  this  life — to  address  himself  to  his 
present  duties,  and  thus  prepare  himself  for  a  blessed 
immortality  ?  not  throwing  on  man  such  a  despair  of  con- 
tinued life  as  to  palsy  all  hope  and  exertion,  nor  giving 


No  Order  in  the  Grave.  209 


him  such  a  warrant  of  long-continued  exemption  from  the 
call  of  death,  as  to  embolden  him  to  neglect  the  present 
and  vainly  presume  on  the  future. 

Again, 

3.  A  superior  moral  discipline  is  exerted  over  mankind 
by  means  of  the  present  course  of  providence  in  the 
infliction  of  death. 

If  death  were  brought  on  each  individual  of  the  race  at 
a  precise  age  and  in  a  precise  manner,  unvarying  in  all, 
there  could  be  in  the  event  no  opportunity  for  the  Creator 
to  make  any  special  manifestation  of  his  feelings,  to  ad- 
dress any  special  admonitions  to  mankind,  or  specially  to 
adapt  the  trial  and  chastening  to  the  state  of  survivors. 
There  would  be  only  the  one,  general  and  unvarying 
expression  of  divine  feeling,  exhibited  in  the  general  plan 
of  removing  man  from  the  world  in  the  way  of  temporal 
death.  But  now,  those  ends  of  superior  moral  discipline 
are  gained.  There  is  now  opportunity  for  God  to  mani- 
fest his  feelings  towards  men  in  this  part  of  his  provi- 
dence. He  has  not  cut  himself  off  from  the  opportunity, 
as  he  would  have  done  by  the  adoption  of  one  invariable 
time  and  manner  of  removal.  And  if  we  look  to  the 
actual  course  of  his  providence,  we  shall  see  that  he  has 
availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  to  testify  to  men  the 
feelings  of  his  heart,  and  bring  them  near  to  him  for 
moral  discipline.  The  patience  of  his  heart  he  now 
proves  to  us,  in  permitting  the  transgressor  to  live  on  to 
old  age  amid  the  abused  privileges  of  this  state.  For 
while  it  is  in  his  hands  to  kill  or  keep  alive  each  moment 
as  he  pleases,  what  patience  must  be  in  his  heart  to  be 
willing  to  endure  the  hardened  transgressor  with  such 
long-suffering !  Compassion  too  he  now  manifests,  in 
restoring  men  to  life  from  the  borders  of  death.  For,  as 
men  now  sink  under  the  withering  power  of  disease,  they 
ask  it  as  a  mercy,  that  he  spare  them  a  little  longer  before 
they  go  hence,  and  if  he  hear  their  cries  and  raise  them 
up,  they  see  and  feel  the  pity  and  compassion  of  his  heart. 
This  exercise  of  his  compassion,  in  healing  sickness  and 
saving  from  death,  is  referred  to  by  the  inspired  writers, 

28 


2io  No  Order  in  the  Grave. 


in  their  appeals  to  the  feelings  of  men  :  it  is  thus  described 
by  David.  "  They  draw  near  unto  the  gates  of  death. 
Then  they  cry  unto  the  Lord  in  their  trouble,  and  he 
saveth  them  out  of  their  distresses.  He  sent  his  word 
and  healed  them,  and  delivered  them  from  their  destruc- 
tions. O  that  men  would  praise  the  Lord  for  his  good- 
ness, and  for  his  wonderful  works  unto  the  children  of 
men  !  "  The  feeling  of  displeasure  or  vengeance  towards 
sin  is  also  at  times  specially  manifested.  It  is  often  sup- 
posed, that  because  one  event — that  of  temporal  death— 
happeneth  to  all,  neither  the  love  or  hatred  of  God  can 
be  shown  in  the  event.  That  it  is  not  the  usual  method 
of  God  so  to  administer  temporal  death,  as  by  that  event 
alone  to  publish  his  hatred  or  approbation  of  the  conduct 
of  its  subjects  to  the  world,  must  be  acknowledged.  Yet 
that  he  does  not  occasionally  make  special  manifestations 
of  his  displeasure,  cannot  be  affirmed  with  truth.  The 
way  is  open  for  him  to  administer  death,  whenever  he 
shall  see  occasion,  in  that  signal  and  fearful  manner  which 
shall  publish  aloud  his  judgments.  And  he  has  done  it. 
The  memorable  instances  of  a  deluged  world,  and  the 
consumption  by  fire  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrha,  are  re- 
corded as  eternal  monuments  of  his  vengeance.  And  the 
revelation  made  of  his  future  providence  show  us  death 
on  his  pale  charger,  riding  forth  to  execute  vengeance  on 
the  guilty  nations.  And  not  only  in  the  method  of  public 
judgments,  when  war,  pestilence,  famine,  go  forth  as 
executioners  of  men,  does  he  manifest  vengeance.  But 
also  in  suffering  individuals,  in  many  instances,  to  be 
executioners  of  themselves,  by  means  of  their  own  sins. 
They  are  left  to  reap  temporal  death,  as  the  direct  and 
obvious  wages  of  their  own  folly.  They  cut  themselves 
off  from  life  by  their  iniquities.  Their  sin  itself  has  upon 
it  the  brand  of  death  and  divine  displeasure.  This  is  seen, 
not  merely  in  the  direct  and  wilful  suicide,  who,  fretting 
against  God  and  providence,  is  left  to  be  devoured  in  the 
fire  of  his  own  rage  and  by  the  blows  of  his  own  wrath  : 
it  is  seen  written  also  on  that  slower  progress  of  awful 
forms  of  disease  and  premature  death,  which  spring  from 


No  Order  in  the  Grave.  21 


the  particular  sins  and  vices  of  men.  They  flow  as  direct 
retributions  for  infringements  on  the  laws  of  God. 
"  Fools,"  says  the  Psalmist,  "  because  of  their  transgres- 
sions, and  because  of  their  iniquities,  are  afflicted.  Their 
soul  abhorreth  all  manner  of  meat,  and  they  draw  near 
to  the  gates  of  death."  If  their  diseases  are  not  arrested 
in  mercy,  but  are  allowed  to  go  on  unto  death,  is  not  the 
displeasure  of  God  against  their  sin  at  least — whether 
their  souls  are  penitent  and  pardoned  or  not — proclaimed 
in  the  manner  of  their  death  ? 

There  is  now  opportunity  also  for  God  to  address  spe- 
cial instruction  and  warning  to  mankind.  Indeed  every 
special  manifestation  of  his  feelings,  which  he  now  lets  in 
upon  the  world,  is  an  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  men  ;  he 
sets  before  them  the  feelings  of  his-own  heart,  in  order  to 
affect  theirs  and  bring  them  into  sympathy  and  harmony 
with  him.  His  patience  towards  us  is  manifest,  to  put 
down  our  impatience  and  fretfulness  towards  him  and 
towards  our  fellow-men.  His  compassion, — to  enkindle 
compassion  in  our  breasts  for  the  needy,  the  suffering,  the 
guilty,  who  surround  us.  His  displeasure, — to  awaken 
displeasure  in  our  hearts  against  sin,  that  we  may  crucify 
it  in  ourselves  and  labor  to  exterminate  it  in  others. 

But  beside  the  admonitions  arising  to  men  from  these 
manifestations  of  divine  feeling,  there  is  more  especial 
warning  still  addressed  to  men  from  death  :  in  its  coming 
near  us  and  removing  the  friends  and  associates,  who  are 
at  our  side,  into  eternity.  A  removal  would  indeed  take 
place  on  the  plan  of  regularity  in  death.  But  in  far  dif- 
ferent circumstances,  with  no  special  appeals  addressed  to 
any  ;  all  of  whom  are  assured  of  the  same  fixed  length  of 
life.  Now  it  is  the  removal  of  our  associates  and  friends, 
our  co-equals  in  age ;  their  removal  at  every  stage  of  our 
journey  ;  their  departure  from  us  in  childhood,  in  youth, 
in  manhood :  bursting  from  the  closest  sympathies  of  life, 
and  leaving  us  here,  who  might  have  been  called  away  in 
their  stead,  to  go  onward  still  in  our  probation,  from  the 
stage  and  point  where  theirs  is  closed  for  eternity.  What 
an  appeal  is  thus  brought  up  to  us  on  all  our  way  in  life, 


212  No  Order  in  the  Grave. 


from  the  death  of  companions  falling  at  our  side  ;  to  re- 
mind us  of  our  duty,  to  affect  us  with  the  providence  that 
permits  us  to  linger  amid  the  privileges  from  which  they 
have  been  withdrawn,  and  bids  us  be  ready  to  follow 
them  at  any  time  into  eternity  ? 

There  is  now  opportunity  also  for  God  to  adapt  the 
chastening,  which  he  administers  through  death,  more 
wisely  to  the  spiritual  wrelfare  of  survivors.  Death  is  to 
invade  every  family  circle.  But  when  shall  it  come,  how 
shall  it  approach,  whom  shall  it  invade?  All  is  now  open 
and  free  for  the  Lord  to  do  as  seemeth  good  in  his  sight. 
And  does  it  make  no  difference  how  he  proceeds  ?  Though 
we  may  not  see  what  particular  course  wisdom  might 
dictate,  yet  is  it  not  obvious  that  to  infinite  wisdom  one 
course  must  appear  preferable  to  another?  He  must  see 
who  most  need  correction,  what  extent  of  correction  will 
be  most  profitable,  and  we  are  assured  from  his  possession 
of  infinite  wisdom,  that  in  the  present  procedure  of  his 
providence  he  adapts  the  chastening  and  correction  he 
administers  through  death,  in  a  manner  the  most  profita- 
ble to  afflicted  friends,  consistently  with  the  other  ends  he 
is  seeking  at  the  same  time  in  his  kingdom.  We  are 
assured  from  his  o\vn  mouth  that  he  doth  it  for  our  profit, 
that  we  might  be  partakers  of  his  holiness — that  we  ma}^ 
be  brought  into  subjection  to  him,  the  Father  of  our 
spirits  and  live. 

Such  are  the  modes  of  superior  moral  discipline,  which 
the  present  manner  of  inflicting  death  enables  the  Lord 
to  administer  to  mankind. 

I  remark,  once  more  only, 

4.  By  means  of  the  present  providence  of  God  in  respect 
to  death,  the  exercise  of  superior  wisdom  is  admitted 
in  the  removal  of  men  from  their  stations  on  earth  into 
those  they  are  to  occupy  in  eternity.  This  consideration 
opens  before  us  a  field  too  boundless  in  extent  to  be 
traversed  by  our  feeble  faculties.  The  eternal  world  is 
wholly  beyond  our  sight,  and  we  know  not  what  change 
is  affected  there  by  the  introduction  of  a  new  inhabitant, 
or  who  of  the  millions  of  this  world  it  is  best  should 


No  Order  in  the  Grave.  213 


arrive  there  on  the  morrow.  In  the  present  world  too, 
we  can  trace  the  results  to  arise  from  the  removal  of  a 
single  person  but  a  little  way,  as  these  results  circle 
forth  from  the  vacancy  on  the  surrounding  mass.  How 
little  then  can  we  know  of  the  relation  the  removal  may 
have  on  the  plans  of  wisdom  for  this  world,  in  all  its  ages, 
and  in  all  the  relations  it  bears  to  the  future  world  !  We 
stand  on  the  verge  of  an  illimitable  field  of  beings  and 
results,  extending  far  beyond  our  ken  into  the  regions  of 
immensity  and  eternity.  Yet  we  know  that  there  is  One, 
whose  piercing  vision  takes  in  the  whole  ;  and  we  have 
confidence  in  his  wisdom,  that  at  whatever  time  he  takes 
any  being  from  this  scene  of  life  and  transfers  him  to 
eternity,  he  sees  it  best  for  the  interests  of  his  whole 
kingdom,  that  the  removal  should  then  be  made.  We 
know  that,  on  the  present  plan  of  providence,  there  is  free 
opportunity  for  the  Creator  to  remove  whomsoever  he 
pleases,  at  whatsoever  time,  and  in  whatsoever  manner : 
that  consequently  there  is  a  range  for  the  exercise  of  his 
wisdom  in  best  adapting  the  removal  to  the  interests  of 
his  whole  kingdom,  that  would  be  entirely  excluded  on  - 
the  plan  of  removing  all  from  the  world  at  one  and  the 
same  period  of  life.  Now  we  have  this  confidence,  that 
when  the  good  and  useful  man  is  cut  off  from  the  earth 
in  early  age,  the  world  will  not  suffer  on  the  whole,  or 
that  if  it  should  at  all,  there  will  be  gain  more  than 
enough  to  counterbalance  it  in  the  kingdom  of  God 
above : — or  that,  when  the  guilty  tyrant  and  oppressor  is 
continued  long  on  earth,  the  world  will  not  suffer  more 
on  the  whole  than  were  he  more  early  removed,  or  at 
least  that  results  will  be  gained  in  the  whole  kingdom 
of  eternity,  more  than  enough  to  counterbalance  the  dif- 
ference that  remains.  The  problem  is  simply  this :  all 
other  things  remaining  as  they  are  ;  that  is,  in  a  world  of 
sin  where  grace  is  carrying  forward  its  conquests,  and 
from  which  all  its  generations  are  to  be  removed  to  their 
endless  retributions,  is  it  best  adapted  to  advance  the 
objects  of  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness  in  both  worlds 
taken  together,  to  remove  all  men  at  a  precise  age  of  life, 


214  No  Order  in  the  Grave. 


or  to  vary  the  time  and  manner  with  the  individuals  ? 
Every  one  who  admits  the  connection  of  means  and  ends 
in  the  kingdom  of  God,  must  have  confidence  that  the 
present  plan  of  removal  is  the  true  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem— that  it  is  best  adapted  to  gain  the  ends  of  wisdom— 
that  it  lets  in  the  exercise  of  superior  wisdom  in  the 
providential  management  of  this  world — that  it  gains 
more  to  the  kingdom  of  God  on  the  whole. 

Such  then  I  conceive  to  be  some  of  the  important  ends 
gained  by  the  present  providence  of  the  Creator,  which 
breaks  in  upon  every  apparent  principle  of  regularity  and 
order  in  the  infliction  of  temporal  death — ends,  which  must 
totally  be  excluded  from  attainment  under  a  system  of 
uniform  regularity  and  order,  and  which  consequently 
evince  the  wisdom  of  God  in  pursuing  the  present  sys- 
tem. 

To  recapitulate  them  in  the  order  we  have  considered 
them,  they  are  the  following  :— the  care  of  human  life  is 
made  to  enter  as  an  element  of  duty  into  our  present 
state  of  probation  ;  the  call  to  attend  to  the  duties  of  our 
probationary  state,  and  prepare  for  another  life,  is  ren- 
dered more  powerful ;  a  superior  moral  discipline  is  ex- 
erted over  mankind  by  means  of  the  infliction  of  death  ; 
and  the  exercise  of  superior  wisdom  admitted,  in  the  re- 
moval of  men  from  their  stations  on  earth  into  those 
which  they  are  to  occupy  in  eternity. 

And  now  what  are  the  practical  conclusions  we  are  to 
derive  from  the  whole  ? 

We  find  ourselves  here  in  a  world  of  probation,  going 
soon  through  the  shadowy  realm  of  death  to  a  state  of 
eternal  retribution.  When  we  once  go,  we  shall  never 
return :  and  with  no  return  to  the  privileges  of  this  day 
of  grace,  our  eternal  condition  is  irreversibly  fixed.  If 
lost,  we  are  lost  forever:  if  redeemed,  redeemed  beyond 
danger  and  thrall.  We  have  seen  that,  in  this  situation 
of  deep  interest  in  which  we  are  placed,  there  is  no  visi- 
ble order  in  the  demands  which  come  up  to  us  from  the 
grave ;  and  we  find  that,  in  this  very  departure  from  any 
fixed  law  of  order  in  the  time  and  manner  of  death,  the 


No  Order  in  the  Grave.  2 1 5 


Creator  is  favoring  our  spiritual  interests  in  this  state  of 
probation, — increasing  the  motives  to  that  devotion  and 
holiness  which  constitute  the  only  true  preparation  for 
future  blessedness ;  and  consulting,  at  the  same,  the  high- 
est good  of  his  entire  kingdom. 

Does  not  the  subject  then  obviously  call  upon  us,  not 
only  as  sinners  to  be  reconciled  to  God — without  which 
all  our  interests  are  wrecked  to  eternity — but  more  espe- 
cially, to  submit  as  reconciled  children  to  his  Fatherly 
wisdom,  and  occupy  ourselves  diligently  in  his  service  ? 

To  submit  as  reconciled  children  to  his  Fatherly  wisdom. 
Any  evidence  which  he  gives  us  of  his  wisdom  and  good- 
ness, should  indeed  lead  us  with  a  filial  confidence  to  com- 
mit ourselves  and  our  friends  and  fellow-creatures  to  the 
disposal  of  his  will.  But  it  may  assist  us  to  submit,  more 
peacefully  and  calmly,  to  a  trying  part  of  his  providence, 
if  we  can  see,  amid  the  darkness  that  surrounds  it,  some 
clear  traces  of  wisdom  and  goodness — that  the  light  of 
his  love  shines  forth,  even  from  the  gloom  and  darkness. 
When  we  look  on  the  apparently  indiscriminate  and 
irregular  path  of  his  providence,  there  is  much  that  looks 
dark  and  mysterious.  We  fix  our  eye  perhaps  on  some 
affecting  instance  of  death  ;  and  we  instinctively  ask,  why 
should  not  death  have  longer  delayed?  Why  should  it 
not  have  come  in  some  other  form  ?  But  why  shall 
we  doubt  or  complain?  If  we  cannot  trace  the  ways 
of  Jehovah  through  all  their  intricacies,  does  he  not  let 
us  see  that  he  is  ordering  this  branch  of  his  providence  in 
a  way  to  conduce  to  the  spiritual  welfare  of  mankind  and 
the  best  good  of  his  kingdom  ?  We  can  see  at  least, 
that  the  general  plan  on  which  he  is  proceeding,  out 
of  which  these  cases  of  trial  arise,  is  the  best,  and 
therefore  adopted  by  fatherly  wisdom  and  goodness. 
Let  us  then  without  a  murmur  or  complaint,  without 
a  wish  to  take  the  disposal  of  ourselves  or  others  out  of 
his  hands,  calmly  leave  all  with  him  ;  rejoicing  that,  in 
this  part  of  his  providence,  he  doeth  all  things  well — that, 
as  a  faithful  and  compassionate  Creator,  he  is  consulting 
the  well-being  of  his  kingdom  and  the  true  welfare  of  all 


216  No  Order  in  the  Grave. 


who  commit  their  ways  and  their  souls  to  his  care.  This 
is  true  submission  :  unlike  the  stoic  apathy  which  submits, 
as  to  a  blind  fate,  with  a  hard-hearted  indifference  towards 
God  and  his  creatures.  This  is  the  submission  of  filial 
love,  which  honors  God  and  cherishes  the  best  affections 
in  the  heart  of  man. 

The  subject  calls  upon  us  also  to  occupy  ourselves  dili- 
gently as  his  servants.  For  the  Lord  is  ever  near  us, 
calling  upon  us  to  value  that  life  on  which  hangs  our  des- 
tiny, and  to  occupy  its  hastening  hours  in  preparation  for 
future  glory.  He  is  near  us  continually,  appealing  to  our 
hearts  from  affecting  scenes  of  death.  He  is  ever  near, 
taking  his  servants  from  this  world  into  eternity.  While 
the  Lord  is  constantly  so  near,  showing  his  footsteps  in 
the  darkest  storms  of  his  providence,  opening  a  path  of 
light  for  all  his  devoted  and  faithful  servants,  be  assured 
that  your  wisdom,  your  safety,  your  happiness  lies  in 
being  fervently  and  diligently  occupied,  as  obedient  ser- 
vants, in  the  great  work  he  has  given  you  to  do  in  this 
life.  This  course  calls  down  the  light  of  his  countenance 
upon  you,  and  brings  you  into  communion  with  his  Spirit, 
as  you  pass  along  your  way  to  the  grave.  It  lets  you, 
with  peaceful  hope  of  heaven,  leave  calmly,  at  his  dis- 
posal, the  hour  and  manner  of  your  departure ;  and  pre- 
pares you  to  meet  the  event,  when  it  comes,  with  joy,  as 
the  time  and  way  your  Lord  appoints  you  of  resting  from 
your  earthly  labors  and  trials,  and  entering  upon  immortal 
blessedness  in  heaven.  Be  ye  then  servants  of  God  in 
this  world  of  your  probation.  Be  ye  followers  of  Jesus 
in  these  scenes  of  his  trial.  Be  diligent,  unmovable,  always 
abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord,  while  here  on  your 
way  to  his  immovable  kingdom  above.  For  Christ,  our 
Master,  will  soon  dismiss  us  from  these  scenes.  *  Blessed 
are  those  servants  whom,  when  he  cometh,  he  shall  find 
so  doing  !  ' 

How,  when,  it  shall  be 
We  cannot  foresee  ; 
But  Lord,  let  us  live,  let  us  die,  unto  thee ! 


THE  DEATH  OF  JOHN   THE  BAPTIST. 


MATTHEW  XIV:  3—11.     MARK  VI:  17—29. 

THIS  distinguished  preacher  of  righteousness  was  sent 
as  a  prophet  to  Israel,  to  announce  the  Messiah  and  intro- 
duce him  into  his  public  ministry.  He  had  been  engaged 
in  this  office  somewhat  more  than  a  year  and  a  half,  when 
his  faithfulness  gave  such  an  offense  to  the  family  of 
Herod  Antipas,  king  of  the  Tetrarchy  of  Galilee,  as  was 
never  forgiven  ;  which  led  to  his  immediate  imprisonment, 
and  subsequently  to  his  death. 

The  offense  was  given  by  a  speech  which  John  made  in 
the  presence  of  Herod  Antipas,  in  regard  to  his  marriage. 
That  speech  excited  the  displeasure  of  the  king ;  but  the 
venom  of  anger  rankled  deepest  in  the  breast  of  his  proud, 
ambitious  and  pleasure-loving  consort, — the  beautiful,  yet 
faithless  Herodias.  This  aspiring  matron,  as  we  learn 
from  the  Jewish  historian  Josephus,  the  grand-daughter 
of  Herod  the  Great,  had  first  married  her  uncle  Herod 
Philip  ;  and  becoming  disgusted  with  him,  as  a  man  who 
had  fallen  into  disgrace  in  the  family,  and  was  left  without 
place  and  without  fortune  in  the  world,  she  intrigued  with 
another  uncle,  already  married,  this  Herod  Antipas,  the 
king  of  Galilee,  with  whom  for  a  husband  she  would  secure 
herself  a  palace  and  a  crown.  The  plot  succeeded  :  the 
enamored  Herod  Antipas  divorced  his  wife,  without  cause, 
and  sent  her  to  her  father,  king  Aretas  :  the  faithless  Hero- 
dias, taking  with  her  her  daughter  Salome,  forsook  her  first 
husband;  and  these  parties,  in  full  violation  of  their  exist- 
ing marriage  vows,  united  their  fortunes  in  an  incestuous 
marriage  in  the  palace  at  Tiberias  in  Galilee.  They  were 

29 


218  The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist. 


living  in  this  strange  union,  and  she  with  her  daughter 
were  reveling  in  the  splendors  and  luxuries  of  a  Roman 
court,  when  John  the  Baptist,  that  stern  preacher  of  the 
laws  of  righteousness,  that  zealous  promoter  of  the  cause 
of  repentance  and  reformation,  came  into  Galilee  exer- 
cising his  ministry  among  the  people.  His  increasing 
fame  and  reputation  as  a  prophet,  brought  him  into  notice 
in  high  places.  Herod,  on  the  throne  of  Galilee,  could 
not  be  indifferent  to  the  influence  which  he  was  acquiring 
among  the  people,  and  which  might  be,  if  not  rightly 
managed,  wielded  against  him  for  purposes  of  sedition 
among  his  subjects.  He  watches  the  prophet.  He  seeks 
occasion  and  opportunity  to  hear  him.  He  regards,  in  his 
outward  practice  before  the  people,  many  of  his  precepts. 
He  appears  for  a  while  pleased  with  his  discourses.  But 
the  occasion  soon  arrives  for  the  prophet  to  be  more 
direct  in  dealing  with  the  conscience  of  the  king,  than  he 
could  do  with  propriety  and  without  appearance  of  scan- 
dal in  the  promiscuous  assemblies  of  the  multitude.  In 
consequence  of  the  popularity  of  the  preacher,  it  is 
probable  that  he  was  invited  to  attend  at  the  palace 
and  preach  before  the  court,  where  the  king  and  queen 
would  stand  prominent  before  him  ;  and  faithfulness  to 
the  highest  interests  of  his  host  and  hostess,  would  seem 
to  demand  an  utterance  of  the  truth  and  an  applica- 
tion of  it  in  favor  of  personal  repentance  and  reformation. 
On  such  an  occasion,  probably,  was  it  (if  it  were  not  a 
still  more  private  interview  taken  with  the  king  alone) 
that  the  speech  was  uttered,  which  proved  the  source  of 
his  persecution  even  unto  death.  The  speech  is  short,  as 
it  is  reported  ;  but  it  unfolded  the  whole  enormity  of  their 
sin,  and  sent  an  arrow  to  their  hearts,  that  gave  a  wound 
never  to  be  healed  except  by  repentance :  "  It  is  not  law- 
ful for  thee  to  have  her,  thy  brother's  wife."  On  that 
annunciation,  Herodias,  more  than  Herod,  trembles. 
*  Will  the  prophet  prevail  over  the  conscience  of  my  hus- 
band to  put  me  away  ?  and  shall  I,  with  my  daughter,  be 
thrust  out  of  the  palace  in  disgrace  ?'  She  turns  with 
rage  against  the  prophet.  She  forthwith  sets  her  pliant 


The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.  219 


husband  to  the  work  of  silencing  this  reprover.  She 
would  have  him  executed*  instantly  :  but  her  husband, 
troubled  a  little  in  conscience,  and  fearing  more  the  indig- 
nation that  might  be  excited  against  him  in  the  populace, 
though  desirous  to  gratify  her  will,  forbears  to  slay  the 
prophet :  but  withdraws  him  from  the  people,  and  closes 
his  opportunities  of  giving  farther  reproof,  by  shutting 
him  up  and  enchaining  him,  within  the  prison  of  the  castle. 
This  account  of  the  imprisonment  of  John  is  briefly 
stated  by  Matthew  and  Mark,  but  in  the  plus-perfect  time, 
because  in  their  history  the  narrative  of  the  imprisonment, 
being  omitted  in  its  proper  place,  is  introduced  as  a  past 
and  prior  transaction,  to  preface  the  account  of  his  death. 
u  Herod  had  laid  hold  on  John  and  bound  him  and  put 
him  in  prison  for  Herodias'  sake,  his  brother  Philip's  wife. 
For  John  said  unto  him,  it  is  not  lawful  for  thee  to  have 
her."  The  two  historians  present  different  motives  that 
induced  Herod  to  forbear  the  execution  and  content  him- 
self with  the  bare  imprisonment  of  John.  Mark  says, 
"  Therefore  Herodias  had  a  quarrel  against  him  [John] 
and  would  have  killed  him  ;  but  she  could  not :  for  Herod 
feared  John,  knowing  that  he  was  a  just  man  and  a  holy, 
and  observed  him,  and  when  he  heard  him  he  did  many 
things  and  heard  him  gladly."  His  respect  and  reverence 
for  the  prophet,  notwithstanding  the  offense  which  made 
him  wish  his  death,  checked  him  from  proceeding  farther 
than  imprisonment.  Matthew  says,  "  And  when  he 
would  have  put  him  to  death,  he  feared  the  multitude, 
because  they  counted  him  as  a  prophet."  His  own  dis- 
pleasure and  his  wife's  entreaties,  both  made  him  wish  for 
the  death  of  John,  but  he  was  held  back  and  restrained 
from  such  extreme  violence,  partly  by  his  reverence  for 
the  prophet  and  partly  by  his  fear  of  the  people. 

A  year  had  elapsed  and  more.  Herod,  with  Herodias 
and  Salome,  lived  on  amid  the  pleasures  of  royal  wealth 
and  extravagance.  John  is  effectually  silenced  in  the 
prison  ;  and  though  his  friends  and  disciples,  through  the 
leave  of  the  king,  may  occasionally  have  access  into  his 
presence,  his  discourses  before  the  multitude  have  ceased, 


220  The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist. 

and  they   become  less  and  less   interested   in  his  fate  and 
fortune. 

The  day  arrives  at  length,  on  which  the  incensed  Hero- 
dias  has  opportunity  to  indulge  the  malice  of  her  heart. 
"  When  a  convenient  day  was  come,"  says  Mark,  in  intro- 
ducing the  narrative.  That  was  the  birthday  of  Herod,— 
to  be  celebrated  with  great  pomp  and  with  riotous  feast- 
ing in  the  palace.  "  Herod,  on  his  birthday,  made  a  sup- 
per,." says  Mark,  "  to  his  lords,  high  captains  and  chief 
estates  of  Galilee."  The  guests  invited  were  the  men  of 
the  Tetrarchy  who  ranked  highest  in  military  and  civil 
offices,  and  who,  being  nearest  him  in  command,  were  the 
most  familiar  friends  of  the  king.  The  tables  were  orna- 
mented with  the  rich  and  splendid  furniture  of  royalty  ; 
the  dishes  were  filled  with  savory  viands  to  regale  the 
appetite  ;  the  cups  and  goblets  were  sparkling  with  wine. 
The  company  recline  on  their  couches  around  the  extend- 
ed tables.  The  halls  glare,  at  this  evening  hour,  with  a 
flood  of  light  from  the  many  burning  lamps.  And  as  the 
feast  advances,  and  the  king  and  his  courtiers  become 
excited  with  wine  and  yield  themselves  to  unrestrained 
hilarity,  at  this  fitting  opportunity  to  gain  promises  and 
presents,  the  young  Salome,  the  daughter  of  Herodias, 
decorated  and  sent  in  no  doubt  by  her  artful  mother, 
appears  before  the  company  in  the  dress  and  with  the 
graceful  movements  of  the  dancing  girl,  to  perform  a  part 
which  was  often  enacted  in  those  days,  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  a  feasting  party — the  graceful,  giddy,  and  volup- 
tuous dance.  As  she  enters  the  hall  of  feasting,  and 
stations  herself  opposite  the  king, — her  brilliant  features 
radiant  with  smiles,  her  decorated  form  illuminated  with 
light,  and  waving  to  and  fro  in  the  dance,  her  gestures 
of  beauty  and  love,  attract  all  eyes  and  give  a  crowning 
joy  to  the  feast.  The  step-father  on  his  royal  couch  is 
pleased  most  of  all.  The  excitements  of  the  wine-cup 
have  driven  away  all  prudence  from  his  heart  and  all  dis- 
cretion from  his  tongue.  Before  the  whole  company  so 
filled  with  pleasure,  he  gives  way  to  the  pride  and  pleas- 
ure awakened  in  his  own  heart  at  receiving  such  an  enter- 


The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.  221 


tainment  from  his  daughter,  and  utters  the  rash  promise 
"Ask  of  me  whatsoever  thou  wilt,  and  I  will  give  it  thee." 
He  was  not  content  with  the  bare  utterance  of  such  an 
unguarded  promise.  Like  a  fool  overcome  with  wine 
and  pleasure,  who,  regardless  of  the  future,  lets  the  feel- 
ing of  the  moment  rule  his  words  and  actions,  he  repeats 
the  promise,  and  binds  himself  to  it  with  a  loud  oath 
before  the  whole  company.  "  He  sware  unto  her,  what- 
soever thou  shalt  ask  of  me,  I  will  give  it  thee,  unto  the 
half  of  my  kingdom." 

Upon  securing  that  promise,  Salome  leaves  the  room. 
The  promise  of  half  th.e  kingdom — half  its  revenues  of 
wealth  and  luxury — she  now  holds  in  her  hand.  She  goes 
straightway  to  her  mother.  Is  she  a  dutiful  child  that 
seeks  advice  of  her  nearest  earthly  friend,  or  a  successful 
complotter,  who  has  gone  to  tell  the  triumph  of  the 
scheme  and  give  her  malignant  mother  the  joy  of  pre- 
senting an  order  through  her  that  shall  compel  the  obe- 
dience of  the  king?  The  sequel  determines.  "And  she 
went  forth  and  said  unto  her  mother,  what  shall  I  ask? 
and  she  said,  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist."  Behold,  the 
value  put  on  revenge  !  The  wealth  of  half  a  kingdom 
is  thrown  away  to  gratify  this  one  malignant  passion  ! 
If  the  daughter  was  not  an  accomplice  with  her  mother 
before,  she  is  now.  All  the  wealth  she  might  appropri- 
ate to  herself  is  neglected,  that  she  may  gain  her  mother's 
will.  Perhaps  she  and  her  mother  both  felt,  that  if  John 
the  Baptist  lived,  he  might  yet  turn  them  both  away 
from  sharing  the  kingdom  with  Herod,  and  that,  to  enjoy 
securely  their  estate  in  his  good  graces,  this  preacher  of 
righteousness  must  be  effectually  silenced.  So  she  return- 
ed quickly  with  her  mother's  message.  "  She  came  in 
straightway  with  haste  unto  the  king."  The  king  was  to 
be  taken,  while  yet  in  the  excitement  of  his  cups ;  while 
his  promise  and  oath  were  still  resounding  in  the  ears  of 
his  guests.  And  quickly,  too,  must  the  boon  be  given 
her  by  the  king.  For  time,  delay,  reflection,  were  dan- 
gerous things  to  be  allowed  to  come  in  before  the  exe- 
cution of  such  a  request  as  she  was  to  make.  The  first 


222  The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist. 

thing  was  to  obtain  her  request :  to  have  it  accomplished  ; 
to  get  the  head  of  the  Baptist  taken  off  while  the  king 
was  in  the  humor  to  fulfill  his  promise:  and  then,— let 
thought  and  reflection  come  on  the  morrow, — they  can 
not  defeat  her  purpose  of  revenge. 

Again  before  the  feasting  company  Salome  stands. 
There  is  now  a  cloud  on  her  brow  ;  a  smile  of  malicious 
triumph  on  her  cheek.  She  appears  more  thoughtful 
than  before.  To  the  astonishment  of  the  whole  company, 
to  the  grief  of  the  king,  she  asks  the  horrid  gift.  "  1 
will  that  thou  give  me — by  and  by,"  or  as  the  Greek  word 
is  more  appropriately  rendered,  forthwith — "  in  a  char- 
ger— the  head  of  John  the  Baptist."  See  how  artful  has 
been  the  malice  of  the  mother,  so  to  frame  the  request  as 
to  make  all  things  sure.  Forthwith — that  there  may  be 
no  opportunity,  between  an  order  given  to  an  executioner 
and  the  time  of  its  fulfillment,  to  allow  of  arresting  the 
process  by  the  intervention  of  any  counter-order.  The 
head  upon  a  plate  or  dish — that  there  may  be  no  deception 
practiced  as  to  the  person  or  his  execution.  u  Give  me 
forthwith,  in  a  charger,  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist." 
O  what  a  miserable  entertainment  was  this  to  be  to  that 
feasting  company!  Instead  of  the  fascinating  dancing 
girl,  entertaining  them  with  joy,  she  stands  before  them 
as  a  murderess  seeking  revenge  through  death,  and  waits 
in  their  presence  till  she  shall  receive,  and  hold,  reeking 
in  its  blood  before  them,  the  head  of  the  hated  prophet. 
"  And  the  king  was  exceeding  sorry  :  yet  for  his  oath's 
sake,  and  for  their  sakes  which  sat  with  him,"  lest  per- 
haps they  should  reproach  him  for  his  fickleness  and 
inconstancy,  or  on  account,  perhaps,  of  the  desire  of  many 
of  them  to  court  the  favor  of  the  queen — "  he  would  not 
reject  her.  And  immediately  the  king  sent  r  an  execu- 
tioner, and  commanded  his  head  to  be  brought." 

Let  us  leave  now  awhile  this  hall  of  splendor,  in  which 
the  king  and  his  guests  are  still  feasting,  though  with 
misgiving  hearts,  and  where  the  damsel  is  in  waiting  to 
receive  her  dowry,  dreadful  as  it  is,  yet  more  valued  than 
half  the  kingdom  of  Galilee ;  let  us  leave  the  palace  and 


The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.  223 


visit  that  dark  apartment  in  the  castle,  in  which  the  pris- 
oner John  resides,  confined  in  chains.  He  has  passed  now 
within  these  walls  more  than  a  year  and  a  half:  for  he 
was  confined  not  long  after  the  first  passover  after  Jesus 
was  inducted  into  office,  and  now  the  third  passover  is  at 
hand.  During  this  period  he  has  at  times  seen  his  fol- 
lowers :  and,  soon  after  the  second  passover,  he  sent,  in 
great  trial,  an  embassy  to  Jesus  to  learn  what  he  might 
expect  from  him  in  regard  to  setting  up  his  kingdom. 
Jesus  returned  an  answer  which  probably  satisfied  this 
righteous  prophet,  that  his  kingdom  would  be  set  up  in 
his  own  time  and  way,  and  led  him  to  submit  without 
offense  to  the  providence  of  Jesus,  as  ordered  in  wisdom, 
and  wait  with  patience  for  blessedness  in  his  kingdom. 
Yet  his  ministry,  though  suddenly  and  early  closed,  had 
produced  its  effect :  and  his  life,  though  now  to  be  cut  off 
from  the  earth,  was  to  be  exalted  to  a  more  peaceful 
state  than  befel  him  in  his  fastings,  his  preaching  of  re- 
pentance, and  his  cruel  persecutions  on  earth.  He  has 
passed  his  last  day  in  the  castle.  He  is  there  because  he 
has  faithfully  told  a  fellow-creature  to  leave  off  his  sins 
and  turn  to  God  in  repentance,  so  that  he  may  have  joy  in 
the  kingdom  of  God.  Nothing  of  enmity  was  in  his  heart. 
He  loved  the  pure  and  righteous  laws  of  his  God.  He 
sought  the  reformation  and  salvation  of  a  sinning  brother. 
And  here  in  his  prison,  suffering  the  enmity  of  those 
whom  he  warned  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come,  he  has 
no  heart  to  wish  them  any  evil  in  return.  He  may  pray, 
if  any  faith  yet  remains  in  their  behalf,  for  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  the  king  and  his  consort,  that  they  may  yet 
see  their  sin,  and  forsake  it,  and  turn  to  God  and  so  find  a 
place  in  his  kingdom.  And  now  as  his  evening  prayers 
have  risen  to  God,  and,  committing  his  soul  to  his  care 
for  the  night,  he  is  about  to  rest  in  his  slumbers,  there 
come  sounds  of  joy  and  revelry  from  the  halls  of  the 
palace  into  his  cell.  He  sees  in  imagination  the  festive 
halls  of  the  king,  and  weeps  at  the  thoughtless  folly  of 
sinners  who  take  all  their  feasting  and  joy  in  this  life— 
who  substitute  the  pleasures  of  sense  and  appetite,  in 


224  The  Death  of  Jo/in  the  Baptist. 


their  momentary  and  intoxicating  excitements,  for  the 
deep  and  pure  river  of  those  spiritual  joys  that  flow 
through  the  heart  of  the  pious  forever,  from  the  love  and 
friendship  of  God.  Perhaps  his  thoughts  turn  towards 
the  grave  and  eternity  :  for  God  is  wont  to  draw  nigh  to 
his  friends  on  their  near  approach  to  death.  Perhaps 
these  sounds  of  feasting  carry  forward  his  own  mind  to 
that  happy  paradise  into  which  no  sin  shall  ever  enter,  and 
where  he  shall  feast,  with  Abraham  and  all  the  prophets 
and  friends  of  God,  upon  the  riches  of  divine  knowledge 
and  love  forever.  '  Thanks  be  to  my  God,'  may  he  say, 
'that  he  has  employed  me  in  his  service  on  the  earth. 
Give  me  all  my  temporal  fastings  and  present  trials  with 
God  for  my  friend,  rather  than  all  these  feastings  of  sin- 
ners to  end  in  the  wrath  to  come.' 

The  hour  of  his  eternal  release  is  come.  The  execu- 
tioner, commissioned  from  the  king,  arrives.  He  turns 
the  key.  He  opens  the  massive  door,  and  stands  before 
John,  the  herald  of  wrath  from  the  queen,  the  herald  of 
mercy  from  God.  The  prophet  bows  to  the  will  of 
Providence.  He  bends  his  neck  to  the  block.  His  head 
is  severed  from  the  body.  And  that  night  his  soul  is  in 
Paradise  ! 

The  executioner  "  beheaded  him  in  the  prison  and 
brought  his  head  in  a  charger,  and,"  in  presence  of  the  king 
and  his  guests,  "  gave  it  to  the  damsel."  The  promise  of 
the  king  was  now  fulfilled,  and  this  treasure,  which  she  val- 
ued more  than  half  the  kingdom,  she  took  with  her  from 
the  room  and  "  brought  it  to  her  mother."  That  head, 
what  will  she  do  with  it?  Will  she  insult  those  lips  and 
that  tongue  that  once  stung  her  with  reproof?  But  the 
soul  is  now  far  away  in  triumphant  joys.  That  head— 
what  will  she  do  with  it  ?  Methinks  it  will  stare  upon 
her  now  a  frown  deeper  than  tongue  and  lips  ever  utter- 
ed. Methinks  it  will  stare  upon  her  in  all  her  pleasures 
and  in  all  her  sufferings  in  this  life— stare  upon  her  at 
death — stare  upon  her  in  eternity.  That  head  she  never 
can  dispose  of.  She  may  bury  it ;  but  it  will  come  up 
again  to  her  waking  and  sleeping  moments.  She  may 


The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.  225 


burn  it;  but  it  will  have  a  resurrection  again  to  her  mind. 
That  reproving  head,  and  she,  the  guilty  sinner,  have 
now  met,  beyond  the  power  of  prison  walls  or  bars  ever 
to  separate.  The  stain  of  blood  has  been  affixed  upon 
her  memory  and  her  conscience  that  ages  will  not  wash 
away. 

But  the  body  of  John  received  kind  testimonies  of 
affection.  "  His  disciples,"  having  obtained  permission, 
doubtless,  of  Herod,  "  came  and  took  up  the  body  and 
buried  it."  Their  leader  was  now  gone  to  heaven,  and 
they  could  not  wait  on  him  any  more  for  instruction. 
"And  when  they  had  buried  the  body,  they  went  and 
told  Jesus."  They  sought  sympathy  and  instruction 
thenceforth  from  Jesus,  the  friend  of  their  master.  In 
this  mysterious  manner,  the  ministry  of  John  was  closed, 
and  his  true  and  faithful  disciples  transferred  forever  to 
the  care  and  kingdom  of  Jesus. 

In  respect  to  this  scene  recorded  in  the  sacred  history, 
I  would  remark, 

i.  That  above  all  the  sad  workings  of  human  passion 
in  the  scene,  the  wisdom  of  an  overruling  providence  is 
manifest  in  giving  this  extraordinary  termination  to  the 
ministry  of  John  the  Baptist. 

The  office  of  John  was  a  peculiar  one,  as  he  was  not 
merely  to  call  the  people  to  repentance,  as  the  prophets 
before  him  had  done,  but  to  do  it  with  distinct  reference 
to  their  preparation  for  receiving  the  Messiah  and  inher- 
iting the  blessings  of  his  kingdom.  He  stood  at  the  close 
of  an  old  economy,  to  introduce  the  long  foretold  Mes- 
siah :  as  an  intermediate  link  to  bind  it  to  the  new.  He 
was  to  labor  as  a  zealous  reformer  to  prepare  the  way  of 
the  Lord,  to  point  him  out  to  the  people  and  introduce 
him  into  his  ministry.  From  the  very  nature  of  his  office, 
therefore,  it  was  necessary  that  it  should  soon  terminate ; 
that,  as  Jesus  began  his  ministry  and  gathered  -around 
him  disciples,  this  ministry  of  preparation  should  cease ; 
that  John  should  not  be  gathering  around  him  his  disci- 
ples longer,  as  it  would  make  a  diversion  of  the  people 
from  their  Great  Deliverer,  and  set  up  an  opposing  sect 

30 


226  The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist. 


in  the  land.  He  was  but  the  morning  star  to  harbinger 
the  coming  of  the  Messiah  :  and  when  Jesus  arose  to 
gather  the  people  to  his  standard — when  he  arose  to  give 
light  as  a  perpetual  Sun  of  Righteousness,  the  star  that 
was  bright  at  the  early  dawn  must  fade  away. 

How  appropriate,  then,  was  the  close  of  his  office.  It 
was  appropriate  that,  as  a  zealous  reformer  come  in  the 
spirit  and  power  of  Elijah,  he  should  be  willing  to  face 
another  Ahab  and  provoke  another  Jezebel,  that  he  should 
reprove  wickedness  on  the  throne  as  well  as  among  the 
multitude :  and  it  wras  appropriate  that,  as  a  reformer 
come  to  prepare  the  way  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  he  should  in 
some  way  be  withdrawn  from  his  office  soon  after  Jesus 
began  by  his  teachings  to  draw  around  him  his  disciples. 
Mark  now  the  course  taken  by  an  overruling  providence. 
He  is  not,  while  moving  forward  in  his  ministry  as  a 
burning  and  shining  light,  giving  joy  and  hope  to  many 
hearts,  suddenly  silenced  by  a  command  from  heaven : 
for  that  would  leave  him  lingering  on  earth  among  his 
waiting  disciples,  as  one  who  had  withdrawn  his  testi- 
mony and  abated  his  zeal ;  and  might  defeat,  rather  than 
consummate,  the  object  of  preparing  them  for  the  school 
of  Christ.  He  is  not  allowed  to  die  a  natural  death  in 
the  bosom  of  his  family  of  disciples :  for  that  would  pre- 
vent him  from  receiving,  as  a  zealous  reformer,  the  appro- 
priate and.  glorious  reward  of  martyrdom  ;  from  riding, 
like  another  Elijah,  on  the  fiery  wheels  of  persecution  to 
a  distinguished  seat  in  glory.  Neither  is  he  struck  down 
by  the  hand  of  violence  and  persecution  at  once,  while 
in  the  full  career  of  his  ministry  and  reputation  among 
his*  disciples  and  the  multitude.  Providence  has  marked 
out  another  course,  whereby  gradually  to  diminish  the 
interest  of  the  people  in  his  teachings ;  to  prepare  him 
and  his  disciples,  both  the  better  to  bow  to  the  will  and 
authority  of  Jesus ;  and  yet,  to  reward  his  just  and  holy 
life  with  the  high  honors  and  exalted  crown  of  mar- 
tyrdom. 

The  hand  of  divine  providence  leads  him  up  to  the 
court  of  Herod.  Faithful  to  his  high  office,  fearing  not 


The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.  227 


the  consequences  that  may  arise  to  his  own  person,  he 
reproves  the  king :  warns  him  by  repentance  to  flee  from 
the  wrath  to  come.  How  wonderful  the  result !  Brought 
thus  into  contact  with  the  family  of  Herod,  the  instru- 
ments of  providence  are  ready  to  execute  its  wise  will 
concerning  John.  The  queen  resolves  on  his  death,  with 
an  inappeasable  hatred,  which  will  never  fail  to  be  ready, 
when  opportunity  shall  be  given,  to  execute  her  purpose. 
The  king  is  himself  incensed,  yet  restrained  by  his  con- 
science and  by  the  tide  of  popular  favor  that  surrounds 
his  reprover :  he  refuses  the  entreaties  of  the  queen  for 
his  instant  death,  and  merely  confines  him  in  prison. 
John  is  thus  withdrawn  from  his  ministry  :  the  field  is  left 
open  to  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  and,  as  his  fame  increases 
and  that  of  John  diminishes,  the  prisoner,  in  an  hour  of 
dejection,  sends  an  embassy  co  seek,  for  himself  and  the 
followers  that  still  cleave  to  him,  and  gain  instruction 
from  Jesus  that  comforts  him  and  the  more  prepares  them 
to  transfer  themselves  to  the  care  and  instruction  of  that 
Great  Teacher.  The  hour  comes  around  when  the.queen^ 
seeing  an  opportunity  to  circumvent  the  king  in  the 
moments  of  intoxication,  plots  her  nefarious  scheme  ;  em- 
ploys the  beauty  and  boldness  of  her  daughter  to  aid  her 
plans ;  obtains  from  the  king,  amid  his  cups,  a  rashly 
unlimited  promise  and  vow  for  her  daughter ;  and  thus 
secures  the  accomplishment  of  her  long  harbored  purpose 
of  revenge.  In  this  mysterious  way,  a  wise  and  superin- 
tending providence  awards  to  John  at  the  close  of  his 
fastings  and  self-denial  and  preachings  of  repentance,  the 
honor  of  ascending,  before  Jesus,  to  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  wear  the  bright  crown  of  martyrdom :  and  his 
few  true  and  faithful  disciples  yet  remaining,  that  provi- 
dence hands  over  to  the  care  of  his  successor,  but  supe- 
rior in  office.  From  the  scene  of  bloodshed  and  the  death 
of  their  leader,  they  go,  with  aching  hearts,  to  pour  their 
sorrows  into  the  sympathizing  bosom  of  Jesus.  To  him 
and  his  school  of  spiritual  instructions  they  thenceforth 
cleave :  and  thus,  without  schism  and  rent,  from  the  co- 
existence of  separate  religious  schools  of  disciples  in  the 


228  The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist. 


land,  all  is  peacefully  transferred  to  the  care  and  instruc- 
tion of  the  Heavenly  Teacher,  Christ  Jesus.  Thus  prov- 
idence ever  interweaves  its  own  plans  into  the  endlessly 
intricate  maze  of  human  interests  and  passions ;  and  suc- 
ceeds, even  amid  the  darkest  conflicts  of  human  malice,  to 
fulfill  its  counsels  of  wisdom  and  love. 

2.  The  portion  of  history  before  us  well  illustrates  the 
nature  and  foundation  of  decision  of  character. 

Decision  as  a  trait  of  character  includes  the  'formation 
of  distinct  purposes  in  the  life,  and  a  steady  and  unbend- 
ing adherence  to  their  execution.  It  is  founded,  either  on 
strict  integrity  in  purpose  or  in  utter  recklessness  ;  on 
virtuous  regard  to  justice  towards  God  and  man,  or  the 
selfishness  that  is  regardless  of  both.  But  he  who  aims 
at  the  middle  path  between  these  is  the  double-minded 
man,  who  is  unstable  in  all  his  ways. 

This  subject  is  very  clearly  illustrated  in  the  principal 
characters  that  figure  in  this  scene.  John  the  Baptist  is 
decisive  on  virtuous  principle.  He  maintains  in  his  heart 
integrity  of  purpose  towards  God  and  man.  He  has  but 
one  errand  on  the  earth  ;  to  publish  and  maintain  the  law 
and  honor  of  God,  and  prepare  his  fellow-men  by  repent- 
ance for  happiness  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  all  the 
steps  of  his  pilgrimage  he  directs  to  accomplish  that  one 
great  errand.  He  denies  himself  the  luxuries  of  life :  he 
fasts  in  the  desert  :  he  proclaims,  alike  fearlessly  before 
all,  the  great  duty  of  repentance.  The  common  people 
in  their  fickleness ;  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  in  their 
pride  of  sanctity  and  learning;  Herod  and  Herodias  on 
their  throne  of  guilt  and  power ;  move  him  not  one 
moment  aside  from  his  high  purpose  of  calling  men  to 
respect  the  laws  of  heaven  and  to  prepare  for  the  blessings 
to  be  brought  by  the  Messiah.  He  has  one  holy  aim  and 
purpose :  and  he  cannot  be  turned  about  by  the  winds  of 
human  passions.  He  leans  back  on  an  upright  conscience 
and  a  God  of  righteousness  ;  and  the  foundations  of  his 
strength  are  immovable. 

Herodias,  on  the  other  hand,  the  proud  and  revengeful, 
is  decisive  through  utter  recklessness  of  justice  to  others, 


The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.  229 

Her  purpose  was  to  exalt  herself  to  power  and  pleasure, 
and  for  this  one  end  she  formed  her  plans,  regardless  of 
the  laws  of  God  or  opinions  of  mankind.  She  sought  the 
pleasure  and  pomp  of  a  throne  at  Tiberias.  Nor  was  she 
moved  from  the  purpose  by  any  moral  obstacles  in  her 
way.  To  gain  that  place,  she  scruples  not  to  abandon  her 
first  betrothed  husband  and  the  father  of  her  child.  She 
hesitates  not  to  make  the  king  of  Galilee  put  away  from 
him  his  faithful  wife.  She  shrinks  not  from  encountering 
the  guilt  and  odium  of  a  life  of  mutual  crime.  And  when 
she  has  gained  that  place,  it  is  her  fixed  purpose  to  keep 
it  and  enjoy  it,  whatever  obstacles  may  arise.  And  when 
John,  by  his  stern  inculcation  of  moral  duty,  begins  to 
work  on  the  conscience  of  her  husband  to  put  her  away, 
instead  of  yielding  for  one  moment  to  this  troubler  of 
her  prospects,  she  adopts  at  once  the  fell  purpose  to 
silence  him  forever,  by  taking  away  his  life :  and,  unmoved 
through  the  delay  of  a  year's  waiting,  embraces  the  first 
opportunity  to  accomplish  her  purpose,  and  succeeds  to 
bring  before  her  in  a  supposed  triumph  his  trunkless  head. 
This  is  the  decision  of  utter  recklessness  :  the  only  deci- 
sion that  remains  for  those,  who  will  not  with  simplicity 
and  integrity  of  purpose  yield  themselves  to  the  service 
of  God — a  decision,  that  must  sooner  or  later  dash  the 
subject  of  it  on  the  rocks  and  barriers  of  eternal  righteous- 
ness. 

Herod,  again,  stands  forth  on  the  scene  as  the  indecisive 
man,  whose  regard  to  justice  on  the  one  hand,  and  regard 
to  his  private  and  selfish  pleasures  on  the  other,  are  ever 
brought  into  conflict,  because  neither  of  them  is  allowed 
to  take  the  supreme  rule  :  and,  thus  in  perpetual  conflict, 
they  prevent  him  from  having  a  definite  will  to  which  he 
immovably  adheres.  At  the  time  he  imprisons  John,  he 
would  gratify  his  anger  and  that  of  his  wife.  He  loves 
his  pleasure  too  much,  to  have  it  marred  by  this  faithful 
preacher.  Yet  he  cannot  go  forward  to  take  the  life  of 
the  prophet,  for  he  still  reverences  him  too  much  as  a  just 
man  and  a  holy,  and  fears  the  people  too  much  to  have  his 
own  way.  And  again,  when,  by  the  arts  of  his  wife  and 


230  The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist. 


daughter,  he  has  bound  himself  before  his  court  to  execute 
John,  he  would  save  him,  but  dare  not.  He  cannot  take 
the  unshaken  purpose  to  save  the  prophet's  life  at  all 
hazards,  regardless  of  his  rash  promise  and  oath  ;  regard- 
less of  the  opinions  of  the  court  and  his  queen  :  for  his 
mind  is  not  made  up  to  fear  God  .above  all  and  follow  the 
prophet's  warnings.  So  he  is  compelled,  against  his  will 
as  it  were,  to  slay  the  prophet.  At  one  time  he  would 
slay  John,  through  his  love  of  his  own  pleasures  ;  but 
fears  John  and  the  people  too  much.  At  another,  he 
would  save  John,  through  regard  to  him  and  the  people  ; 
but  fears  the  queen  and  her  daughter  and  the  nobles  too 
much. 

Into  one  of  these  three  classes  mankind  ever  divide 
themselves  :  the  decisive  on  virtuous  principle,  who  are 
lifted  up  by  regard  to  the  right  above  all  momentary  and 
changing  considerations :  the  decisive  on  utter  recklessness 
of  right,  in  pursuit  of  selfish  pleasure  :  and  the  vacillating, 
who  can  never  make  up  their  minds  decisively  to  either 
course. 

3.  The  history  sets  before  us  the  deceitfulness  of  un- 
lawful pleasures. 

Pleasures  that  are  unlawful,  however  smiling  and 
insinuating  their  appearance  and  promises,  infringe  on 
some  fixed  laws  of  heaven  ordained  for  the  welfare  of 
individuals  or  of  society,  and  necessarily  bring  back  a 
recompense  of  guilt  and  woe.  To  seek  for  pleasure  by 
violating  either  the  physical,  mental  or  moral  laws 
ordained  for  our  welfare,  is  a  course  that  can  end  only  in 
disappointment :  for  these  laws  are  walls  of  everlasting 
strength,  and  if  we  dash  against  them,  we  ourselves  must 
break  down, — not  they. 

The  beautiful  Salome,  moving  before  the  king  on  the 
night  of  the  feast  in  the  dance,  stands  forth  as  it  were  the 
personification  of  the  treachery  that  lurks  behind  the 
promises  of  sinful  pleasure.  Could  the  king  have  thought, 
as  he  looked  upon  her  fascinating  smiles,  that  she  medi- 
tated anything  but  to  gratify  the  guests  of  her  father,  and 
give  him  pleasure  in  the  feast  ?  All  is  fair  and  winning  to 


The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.  231 


the  eye.  Yet  that  beauteous  form  conceals  a  treacherous 
heart,  that  seeks  not  to  please  the  father  so  much  as  to 
win  from  him  a  dreadful  favor.  She  takes  advantage  of 
his  hour  of  weakness,  that  she  may  fulfill  a  fell  purpose  of 
her  mother's,  and  draw  the  king  into  the  commission  of  a 
horrid  crime.  Her  happy  smiles  of  pleasure  but  de- 
ceived him,  and  led  him  onward,  in  vile  subservience  to 
plots  of  murder. 

I  say,  she  personifies  the  deceit  and  treachery  of  the 
promises  that  attend  on  sinful  pleasures. 

Thus  treacherous  are  the  promises  of  the  wine  cup — 
they  were  so  to  the  king.  He  took  the  exhilarating 
draught,  that  he  might  obtain  pleasure.  He  thought  he 
saw  nothing  in  the  cup  but  innocent  hilarity.  But  there 
lurked  the  demon  of  intoxication.  There  lurked  the  poi- 
son that  was  to  work  on  his  physical,  intellectual  and 
moral  nature,  to  turn  him  into  the  brute,  without  reason 
or  reflection.  His  brain  is  maddened  :  his  wisdom  and 
prudence  forsake  him ;  and  he  becomes  an  accomplice 
with  murderers.  Such  is  the  brief,  sad  history  of  many  a 
life  of  intemperance,  wretchedness  and  crime. 

Such  treachery  too  was  there  in  that  first  dream  of  un- 
hallowed pleasure  which  united  the  fates  and  fortune  of 
the  guilty  pair.  Herodias  seeks  to  find  the  pleasure  of 
luxury,  of  lust  and  of  pride,  in  living  with  Herod  in  his 
palace.  Doubtless,  as  she  forsook  her.  first  husband,  all 
the  future  appeared  to  her  proud  and  ambitious  mind  as 
the  dream  of  enchantment.  Uninterrupted  joy  and  honor 
is  to  be  her  happy  lot.  But,  while  indulging  in  this 
dream  of  pleasure,  she  is  warring  with  the  laws  of  hea- 
ven :  and  up  to  her  palace,  on  his  mission  of  righteous- 
ness and  mercy,  comes  John  the  Baptist  to  utter  those 
laws.  Now  is  she  agitated,  as  she  still  clings  to  her 
place  at  the  side  of  Herod.  The  venom  of  revenge  poi- 
sons her  peace.  She  makes  her  daughter  and  the  king 
accomplices  in  the  murder  of  the  prophet.  And  never 
after  does  she  prosper.  Thus  did  those  fair  dreams  of 
pleasure  deceive  her,  and  lead  her  on  to  many  crimes  and 
cruelties  in  warring  against  the  laws  of  heaven  :  to  hate 


232  The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist. 


the  holy  prophet  of  the  Lord;  to  compromise  the 
modesty  and  honesty  of  her  daughter ;  to  abuse  the 
weakness  and  confidence  of  her  husband  ;  to  indulge  her 
own  heart  in  deadly  revenge :  and  thus  fill  her  soul,  in  all 
its  future  remembrances,  with  the  elements  of  remorse 
and  wretchedness. 

So  it  is  ever  with  all  the  promises  of  sin.  Satan,  wicked 
men  around  us,  our  own  hearts,  may  trust  in  them  awhile  ; 
but  they  are  promises  set  up  against  the  laws  and  engage- 
ments of  God.  He  will  fulfill  his  own  promises  and 
threatenings,  and  scatter  forever  all  who  trust  in  lies. 

4.  Finally  :  We  may  learn  the  folly  of  employing  force 
and  violence  against  those  who  seek  the  repentance  and 
reformation  of  their  fellow-men. 

Reformers  who  set  up  to  reclaim  men  from  their  sins, 
and  call  them  to  walk  in  the  laws  of  heaven,  have  a  task 
that  is  not  welcome  to  our  weak  and  perverse  nature. 
They  are  generally,  like  John  the  Baptist,  true  men  and 
honest,  just  men  and  holy.  Otherwise  they  would 
not  apply  themselves  with  earnestness  to  their  severe 
task.  Men  love  quiet  and  ease  in  their  pleasures. 
Whether  their  pleasures  before  God  are  lawful  or 
unlawful,  they  would  pursue  them  without  any  moral 
disturbances  or  hindances.  Agitation  is  their  dread. 
But  this  world  is  not  intended,  chiefly,  for  pleasure ; 
but  as  a  world  of  probation,  in  which  men  are  to  be 
reclaimed  from  sin  and  trained  to  holiness,  that  so  they 
may  escape  the  wrath  to  come,  and  inherit  pure  and  fade- 
less happiness  in  the  holy  and  heavenly  kingdom  of  God. 
Reformers  therefore,  the  hearty  and  true,  who  set  up  the 
law  of  God  as  their  rule,  are  engaged  in  the  work  of  God  ; 
and,  whether  they  are  judicious  in  the  world's  estimation 
or  not,  it  is  wiser  surely  to  repent  of  our  sins  than  to 
blame  the  zeal  of  our  reprovers  :  wiser  to  reason  with 
them,  if  we  deem  them  wrong,  than  violently  to  assault 
their  persons.  This  moral  lesson  is  taught  us  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Baptist. 

This  zealous  reformer  was  a  just  man  and  holy,  as  even 
Herod  acknowledged.  He  approved  of  the  wise  and 


The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist.  233 


holy  laws  of  God.  He  sought  the  honor  of  God  and  the 
welfare  of  man,  in  his  zealous  advocacy  of  repentance. 
But  his  agitating  reproof  administered  at  the  palace  was 
unwelcome.  Instead  of  yielding  up  their  sin,  the  royal 
pair  assail  the  prophet ;  exclude  him  from  the  field  of  his 
labors  by  force  of  imprisonment ;  and  with  murderous 
revenge  take  away  his  life.  But  have  they  gained  by 
their  violence  ?  The  prophet  is  calm,  in  the  flow  of  pious 
and  virtuous  affections  in  his  heart ;  in  the  conscious 
sense  of  having  pursued  the  highest  welfare  of  his  fellow- 
creatures  in  his  labors  ;  and  in  the  hope  of  inheriting  the 
favor  of  the  eternal  God  in  his  kingdom — a  joy  beyond 
the  reach  of  any  violence  from  men  or  devils. 

But  how  is  it  with  the  guilty  trio  in  the  palace  ?  Can 
their  hatred  of  John,  their  imprisonment  of  him,  their 
murder  of  him,  alter  the  laws  of  heaven  ;  annihilate  their 
own  crimes ;  or  prepare  the  way  for  future  peace  and 
joy? 

Who  would  not  sooner  take  the  place  of  John  in  his 
prison  on  the  night  of  his  execution,  than  that  of  either  of 
the  guilty  inmates  of  the  palace  during  the  feasting?  He 
went  up  that  night  from  his  cell  to  take  a  crown  nobler 
far  than  that  of  Herod — the  martyr's  crown  of  everlasting 
glory. 

Salome  and  the  queen  are  taking  their  feast  of  revenge 
over  the  platter  that  holds  the  lifeless  head  of  John. 
Poor  triumph  of  an  hour,  that  embitters  the  peace  of  the 
king ;  that  stains  their  consciences  with  guilt ;  and  that 
sends  an  accuser  up  to  the  Heavenly  Altar  to  cry,  "  How 
long,  O  Lord,  dost  thou  not  avenge  our  blood  on  them 
that  dwell  on  the  earth  ?  "  If  we  may  believe  the  report 
of  profane  history,  vengeance  did  not  long  wait.  The 
fair  Salome,  while  walking  across  a  frozen  river,  it  is 
reported,  broke  through,  and  fell  in  such  a  way  as  that, 
on  the  return  of  the  parted  fragments  of  ice,  as  she  rose, 
her  head  was  severed  from  the  body.  And  Herod  and 
Herodias  were  called,  by  imperial  authority  at  Rome, 
away  from  their  palace,  and  sent  in  exile  to  Lyons,  to  end 
their  days  in  want  and  disgrace :  and  all  went  at  death  to 


234  The  Death  of  John  the  Baptist. 


meet  their  victim  at  the  bar  of  eternal  righteousness,  and 
receive  the  just  award  of  their  deeds. 

Such  is  the  folly  of  persecuting  the  just,  who  labor  to 
give  efficacy  to  the  laws  of  God.  Inspiration  has  declared, 
"  He  that  justifieth  the  wicked,  and  he  that  condemneth 
the  just,  even  they  both  are  an  abomination  to  the  Lord." 
Doubly  hateful  in  his  sight,  therefore,  must  that  man  be, 
who  combines  both  crimes  in  one :  who  upholds  the 
wicked  in  their  sins,  by  smiting  down  with  violence  their 
just  and  faithful  reprovers. 


THE  RIGHTEOUS  TO  LIVE  HEREAFTER    WITHIN 
THE  SCENES  OF  A  MATERIAL    UNIVERSE. 


II.  PETER  III:   13. 

NEVERTHELESS,  WE,  ACCORDING  TO  HIS  PROMISE,  LOOK  FOR  NEW  HEAVENS  AND 
A  NEW  EARTH,  WHEREIN  DWELLETH  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

THE  apostle  had  just  spoken  of  the  destruction  of  the 
present  world  by  fire  at  the  close  of  the  probation  of  our 
race,  when  all  shall  be  summoned  from  their  graves  for 
judgment.  In  that  day,  "  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fer- 
vent heat,  the  earth  also  and  the  works  that  are  therein 
shall  be  burned  up."  But  shall  the  saints  of  God  have 
no  dwelling  ?  Are  the  material  worlds  and  suns  of  the 
creation  literally  to  be  annihilated,  and  are  their  souls  to 
wander  forth  homeless,  shelterless,  on  the  void  expanse  of 
infinite  space  and  duration?  The  apostle  did  not  thus 
present  the  last  conflagration,  as  the  total  annihilation  of 
matter  and  material  worlds.  He  set  before  his  fellow 
Christians  a  more  glorious  edifice  to  arise  from  the  ruins, 
new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  fitted  to  be  the  immortal 
abode  of  righteous  beings.  The  promise  of  the  Lord 
assured  him  that  the  object  of  the  last  conflagration  was 
not  destruction,  but  the  process  of  purgation,  repairing 
and  reconstruction  ;  in  order  that,  the  wicked  being  gath- 
ered out  of  his  kingdom,  the  righteous  might  have  a  pure 
and  joyous  residence  for  their  immortality. 

My  design  now  is  to  set  before  you  the  evidence,  that, 
after  the  final  judgment,  the  righteous  are  to  have  for 
eternity  their  dwelling  still  within  the  bounds  of  a  mate- 
rial universe.  There  can  be  but  two  positions  taken  on 
the  general  subject,  either  that  the  material  worlds  are 
to  be  annihilated,  or  are  to  continue  forever ;  that  the 
visible  universe  is  to  cease  utterly,  or  is  perpetually  to 


236  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter  within 


remain;  that  the  righteous  are  to  float  forever  through 
utterly  empty  space,  or  are  to  live  still  within  the  anchor- 
age ground  of  a  physical  creation.  It  is  no  part  of  my 
present  design  to  enter  into  any  particular  theory  of  a 
future  physical  creation,  among  the  many  that  have  been 
or  that  might  be  broached  on  the  subject:  but  simply  to 
advocate  the  future  existence  of  at  least  some  physical 
creation,  as  the  abode  of  the  righteous. 

I  would  first  call  your  attention  then  to  the  fact  that  we 
have  no  positive  evidence  to  show  that  the  universe  of 
matter  is  ever  to  be  annihilated.  There  is  no  evidence  of 
such  annihilation  furnished  us,  either  by  reason  or  revela- 
tion. Reason  furnishes  none  from  secondary  causes  or 
from  analogy.  In  all  the  researches  of  man  into  the 
chemical  and  astronomical  structure  of  the  universe,  no 
causes  have  been  found  which  are  adequate  to  the  work 
of  annihilation.  The  utmost  which  can  be  predicted 
from  known  secondary  causes,  is  that  there  may  possibly 
occur  some  great  changes  in  the  world  or  the  solar  sys- 
tem :  but  there  is  nothing  which  indicates,  in  the  least,  the 
effect  of  annihilation.  Indeed,  all  the  researches  of  reason 
lead  us  up  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  annihilation  of  mat- 
ter, if  it  ever  occurs,  can  be  the  result  only  of  that  imme- 
diate and  direct  omnipotence  of  the  Creator,  which  first 
called  it  into  existence.  Is  it  then  the  will  of  the  Creator, 
to  annihilate  by  his  omnipotent  power  the  worlds  he  has 
made?  If  we  reason  from  the  analogy  of  a  past  provi- 
dence, it  would  seem,  from  the  facts  as  evinced  in  the 
geological  history  of  the  world,  that  great  convulsions 
and  changes  have  passed  over  it,  which  have  been  only 
preparatory  to  its  improvement  and  better  subservience 
to  the  accommodation  of  its  inhabitants,  increasing  in  the 
scale  from  the  lowest  animals  to  the  race  of  man ;  and, 
so  far  as  reason  can  argue  from  the  past,  it  would  seem 
probable  that  the  world,  if  carried  through  any  great 
convulsions  in  the  future,  would  be  still  spared  in  its 
existence  and  improved  for  the  accommodation  of  beings 
more  exalted  still,  or  for  man  himself  in  a  more  exalted 
state  of  being  than  now. 


the  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  237 


But  from  reason,  we  pass  to  the  book  in  which  this 
great  Being-  has  given  us  a  revelation  of  his  designs.  Has 
he  told  us  in  this  book,  that  he  is  to  annihilate  the  worlds  ? 
Here  again  I  assert,  that  revelation  furnishes  us  no  evi- 
dence of  such  a  catastrophe.  There  are  many  passages 
which  speak  of  a  great  event  to  take  place  in  the  physi- 
cal universe,  at  the  close  of  the  probation  of  our  race— 
the  time  of  the  general  judgment — represented  as  de- 
struction by  conflagration.  Yet  if  we  examine  these 
passages  carefully,  inquiring  what  that  destruction  is  and 
how  far  it  extends,  we  shall  see  that  they  do  not  touch 
the  question  of  the  utter  annihilation  of  the  worlds.  The 
most  explicit  of  all,  is  that  which  immediately  precedes 
our  text.  There  is  no  doubt  in  the  case,  that  the  material 
world  is  spoken  of,  and  a  description  given  of  the  de- 
struction which  it  is  to  undergo  at  the  period  of  the 
judgment.  The  destruction  is  here  ascribed  to  the  agency 
of  fire.  But  fire,  whatever  destruction  it  might  accom- 
plish in  the  present  forms  of  the  matter  of  the  globe,  is 
not  an  agent  to  destroy  its  substance,  or  to  destroy  that 
centripetal  force  which  binds  it  together  in  a  world.  But, 
if  we  pass  from  the  nature  of  the  agent  employed  to  the 
effects  which  are  specified  by  Peter  as  resulting,  we  do  not 
come  to  annihilation.  There  are  three  results  which  he 
specifies  :  the  heavens  being  on  fire  are  dissolved — the  ele- 
ments are  melted  with  fervent  heart, — the  earth,  and  the 
structures  of  divine  and  human  skill  that  are  in  it,  are  con- 
sumed. We  have  seen  substances  dissolved  in  gases  or 
smoke,  and  passing  off  from  their  former  place  ;  we  have 
seen  the  solid  materials  of  the  globe  melted  down  into 
flowing  and  liquid  masses;  we  have  seen  the  forms  of 
nature  or  art  consumed, in  the  fires: — yet  in  none  of  these 
things  have  we  witnessed  the  annihilation  of  matter.  All 
the  results  therefore  which  Peter  ascribes  to  the  last  con- 
flagration, involve  not  the  annihilation  of  matter.  The 
matter  still  subsists,  notwithstanding  the  conflagration,  to 
be  moulded  into  new  combinations  and  forms,  and  for  new 
purposes,  if  such  shall  be  the  will  of  the  Creator.  There 
is  one  result  of  the  conflagration  mentioned  by  Peter, 


238  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter  within 


which,  however,  deserves  more  attentive  consideration. 
"  The  heavens,"  he  says  in  one  place,  "  being  on  fire  shall 
be  dissolved,"  and  in  another  place,  "  shall  pass  away  with 
a  great  noise."  Now  if  this  were  spoken  of  the  whole 
starry  heavens,  that  they  are  to  pass  away,  it  might  seem 
that  the  description  referred  to  the  total  annihilation  of  the 
present  universe.  But  the  starry  heavens,  it  is  clear  from 
the  context,  are  not  intended.  For  Peter  had  introduced 
the  whole  description,  by  referring  to  a  former  heavens 
and  earth  standing  in  the  water  and  out  of  the  water, 
destroyed  by  the  deluge:  and  the  heavens  and  the  earth, 
which  are  now,  being  reserved  unto  fire.  The  heavens 
here  spoken  of  consequently  must  be  those  which  imme- 
diately surround  our  globe,  the  aerial,  not  the  sidereal. 
The  translation  given  by  Rosenmiiller  to  the  phrase,  'the 
heavens  and  the  earth '  in  this  chapter,  accords  with 
this,  viz  :  "  the  earth  with  its  atmostphere."  The  truth  is, 
the  eye  of  the  apostle  was  fixed  on  this  world  as  the 
great  scene  of  conflagration,  this  world  which  is  reserved 
unto  fire,  against  the  day  of  judgment  and  perdition  of 
ungodly  men.  His  description  therefore  is  optical — the 
scene  is  presented,  as  it  would  appear  to  the  eye  of  a 
spectator  on  the  globe ;  these  skies  are  filled  with  the 
crackling  flames  and  smoke,  before  which  all  the  fowls  of 
heaven  and  the  living  swarms  of  the  insect  tribes  that 
move  in  it  are  destroyed,  and  for  the  time,  day  and  night, 
the  sun  and  stars,  disappear, — this  solid  globe  is  melted 
down  to  one  liquid  mass  ;  and,  in  the  burning  cauldron, 
sinks  consumed  every  vestige  of  the  works  of  God  and 
man  that  once  adorned  it.  But  if  the  description  were 
literally  extended  to  all  the  starry  worlds  of  this  immense 
universe,  our  globe  •  would  constitute,  in  so  vast  a  con- 
flagration, but  a  small  and  trifling  flame,  and  it  would  be 
against  all  the  proportions  of  harmony  and  truth,  to  pre- 
sent it  as  the  principal  and  grand  scene  of  dissolution.  I 
see  therefore,  in  this  description  of  Peter,  no  other  de- 
struction than  that  which  is  occasioned  by  fire,  and  that 
scene  of  destruction,  too,  confined  to  this  one  globe  and 
the  contents  of  its  atmosphere.  No  evidence  is  furnished 


the  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  239 


in  this  description  of  the  annihilation,  even  of  this  globe, 
much  less  of  this  solar  system  or  the  immense  starry  heav- 
ens. Again,  John  in  his  first  epistle,  chap,  ii :  17,  asserts, 
"  the  world  passeth  away,  and  the  lust  thereof."  The 
world  here  I  understand  in  the  moral  sense,  to  denote 
"worldly  men:"  these  pass  away,  and  with  them  the  ob-* 
jects  of  their  lusts.  In  which  sense  nothing  more  is  asser- 
ted, than  that  death  puts  an  end  to  the  gratification  of 
their  worldly  lusts,  or  that,  to  them,  all  the  objects  of 
their  happiness  are  transitory.  Again,  the  apostle  Paul, 
in  his  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  chap,  vii :  31, 
asserts:  "  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away."  The 
"scheme,"  the  plan,  of  this  world  is  here  asserted  to  be 
transient.  This  declaration  again  may  be  interpreted  in 
the  moral  sense — that  the  state  of  man  on  the  earth  is 
ever  unstable  and  changing.  If  on  the  other  hand  it  is 
interpreted  in  the  physical  sense,  thert  it  supports  the  con- 
clusion of  a  certain  writer,  that  not  the  "  matter  and  sub- 
stance of  the  world,  but  the  mode  and  form  of  it,  pass  away  ; 
for,  after  this  world  is  burnt  up,  a  new  one  as  to  form  and 
fashion  will  arise,  in  much  more  beauty  and  glory." 
There  is  a  passage  again  in  the  book  of  Job,  which  asserts 
of  the  dead,  that  they  will  not  arise  "  till  the  heavens  be 
no  more."  This  phrase  may  refer  to  the  destruction  of 
the  world  at  the  last  day,  in  which  case  what  we  have 
already  said  of  the  last  conflagration,  in  its  relation  to  the 
heavens,  is  to  be  taken  into  consideration — that  the  heav- 
ens in  such  descriptions  are  taken,  not  literally  for  the 
whole  starry  universe,  but  optically  for  the  atmosphere 
and  surrounding  appendages  of  the  globe.  But  there  is 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  phrase  is  here  used  in  the 
rhetorical  sense,  as  we  shall  presently  find  it  used  in  other 
instances,  to  express  a  thing  that  the  writer  is  confident 
will  never  take  place.  We  have  an  instance  of  this  rhetori- 
cal and  tropical  sense  in  Matthew,  chap,  v:  18,  "till 
heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  one  jot  and  one  tittle  shall 
not  pass  from  the  law,"  meaning  that  the  law  never  will 
be  impaired.  If  this  is  the  use  of  the  phrase  in  Job,  then 
the  declaration  refers  not  at  ail  to  the  future  resurrection 


240  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter  within 


to  another  life,  which  is  to  take  place  at  the  end  of  the 
present  plan  of  the  world,  but  simply  to  a  return  to  this 
present  life  itself;  that  the  dead  are  never  to  come  back 
again  to  this  present  scene  of  trial;  they  are  forever 
removed  from  it  by  death.  That  is,  the  heavens  will  as 
soon  vanish  as  the  dead  come  back  again  to  the  scenes 
and  occupations  of  the  present  life.  This  interpreta- 
tion accords  with  'the  whole  drift  of  what  in  the  im- 
mediate context  precedes  and  follows.  Another  instance 
of  the  tropical  use  of  such  phraseology,  is  to  be  found  in 
Jeremiah,  xxxi :  35,  &c.  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  which 
giveth  the  sun  for  a  light  by  day  and  the  ordinances  of  the 
moon  and  the  stars  for  a  light  by  night — if  those  ordinan- 
ces depart  from  before  me,  saith  the  Lord,  then  the  seed 
of  Israel  also  shall  cease  from  being  a  nation  before  me 
forever."  This  tropical  use  of  phraseology  relating  to 
the  destruction  of  the  heavens  and  earth,  it  is  obvious, 
proceeds  on  the  strong  impression  we  have  of  the  perma- 
nency of  heaven  and  earth,  and  all  its  force  and  appro- 
priateness are  lost,  if  we  suppose  there  is  the  least  reference 
made  to  their  actual  destruction  as  ever  to  take  place. 
The  following  passages  may  be  classed,  either  under  the 
tropical  use  of  phraseology  or  under  the  literal ;  and  with- 
out deciding  which,  it  is  enough  to  show  that  neither 
interpretation  establishes  the  conclusion  of  utter  annihila- 
tion. Isaiah  li :  6,  "  Lift  up  your  eyes  to  the  heavens, 
and  look  upon  the  earth  beneath ;  for  the  heavens  shall 
vanish  away  like  smoke,  and  the  earth  shall  wax  old  like 
a  garment :  but  my  salvation  shall  be  forever,  and  my 
righteousness  shall  not  be  abolished."  Vitringa  remarks, 
the  prophet  does  not  here  declare  absolutely  that  the 
heavens  and  earth  are  to  perish,  but  comparatively,  in 
hyperbolical  speech,  that  the  heavens  and  earth,  if  either, 
will  sooner  fail  than  the  salvation  promised  to  his  people. 
God  will  sooner  destroy  all  the  physical  laws  he  has 
instituted,  and  break  down  all  the  worlds  of  his  creation 
than  violate  his  promise.  Ps.  cii :  26,  27,  quoted  Heb.  i : 
u,  12.  "They,"  the  heavens  and  the  earth  "shall  perish, 
but  thou  remainest,  and  they  all  shall  wax  old  as  doth  a 


the  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  241 


garment,  and  as  a  vesture  shalt  thou  fold  them  up  and 
they  shall  be  changed,  but  thou  art  the  same,  &c."  Rosen- 
miiller  gives  this  interpretation  :  '  should  all  these  things 
perish,  thou  wilt  still  remain.'  But  if  we  interpret  these 
passages  in  the  literal  sense,  and  not  the  tropical,  that 
the  time  is  to  come  when  these  great  changes  shall  pass 
upon  the  heavens  and  earth,  that  these  things  will  change 
their  present  forms :  they  can  refer  to  no  other  events 
than  those  which  are  so  directly  and  explicitly  described 
by  Peter :  and  according  to  this  full  and  explicit  descrip- 
tion, they  are  changes  by  the  agency  of  fire,  changes  in 
the  form  and  arrangement  of  matter,  not  the  utter  anni- 
hilation of  its  substance. 

There  is  one  more  use  still  of  phraseology  relating  to 
the  destruction  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  which  is  to 
be  found  in  the  Scriptures — that  of  prophetic  imagery. 
According  to  Lowth  "the  prophets  derived  the  materials 
of  this  imagery  from  the  chaos  and  creation,  which  compose 
the  first  pages  of  the  sacred  history.  As  the  sun,  moon 
and  stars  are  there  represented  as  ruling  the  day,  so  they 
are  made  in  prophecies  relating  to  the  fate  of  empires,  to 
represent  the  destruction  of  the  reigning  powers.  If  the 
subject  be  the  destruction  of  the  Jewish  empire  by  the 
Chaldeans,  or  a  strong  denunciation  of  ruin  against  the 
enemies  of  Israel,  it  is  depicted  in  exactly  the  same  colors, 
as  if  universal  nature  were  about  to  relapse  into  the 
primeval  chaos."  Isaiah  thus  speaks  of  the  ruin  of  the 
enemies  of  Israel,  "All  the  host  of  heaven  shall  be  dissolv- 
ed, and  the  heavens  shall  be  rolled  together  as  a  scroll, 
and  all  their  hosts  shall  fall  down."  Joel  thus  foretells 
the  destruction  of  the  enemies  of  Israel.  "  The  sun  and 
the  moon  shall  be  darkened,  and  the  stars  shall  withdraw 
their  shining,  the  heavens  and  the  earth  shall  shake." 
Similar  is  the  language  of  Christ,  in  predicting  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem :  "  The  sun  shall  be  darkened,  and 
the  moon  shall  not  give  her  light,  and  the  stars  shall  fall 
from  heaven,  and  the  powers  of  the  heavens  shall  be 
shaken."  All  this  prophetic  imagery  which  is  intended 
to  describe  merely  things  in  the  political  or  ecclesiastical 

32 


242  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter  within 


world,  it  is  clear,  can  furnish  us  no  evidence  of  what  is  to 
be  the  fate  of  the  material  universe. 

The  conclusion,  to  which  this  examination  of  the  Scrip- 
tures brings  us,  is  the  following :  that  in  all  the  phraseol- 
ogy relating  to  the  destruction  of  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,  contained  in  the  Scriptures, — for  our  examination  has 
exhausted  those  uses, — there  is  no  evidence  that  it  is  the 
design  of  God  to  annihilate  the  material  creation :  that 
the  passages  may  be  arranged  under  the  heads  of  pro- 
phetic imagery,  rhetorical  figure,  or  literal  description, 
either  moral  or  physical ;  that  of  these,  only  the  latter 
class  afford  any  testimony  as  to  the  fate  of  the  material 
creation ;  and  that  from  these,  no  more  can  be  learned 
than  the  destruction  of  this  globe  and  its  surrounding 
ether  by  fire — a  destruction  of  form,  arrangement,  or- 
ganic structures,  human  edifices — that  which  marks  the 
present  mode  and  scheme  of  the  world — but  not  the  de- 
struction of  its  substance. 

If,  then,  reason  discerns  no  adequate  cause  in  the 
material  universe  to  effect  its  annihilation,  and  must 
refer  the  subject  to  the  decision  of  the  divine  will,  of 
which,  independently  of  revelation,  it  can  know  nothing  ; 
and  if,  in  the  revelation  which  this  great  Being  has  given 
us  of  his  designs,  he  has  nowhere  taught  us  that  it  is  his 
design  to  annihilate  the  material  universe,  it  is  clear  that 
we  have  no  positive  evidence  whatever  to  show  that  the 
material  universe  will  ever  be  annihilated. 

Let  us  see  now  how  far  this  consideration  carries  us. 
We  have  at  least  cut  off  all  positive  evidence  of  the  anni- 
hilation of  the  material  universe.  But,  so  far,  the  conclu- 
sion is  negative  only.  We  have  no  authority  positively 
to  believe  in  its  annihilation.  But  we  are  not,  on  the 
other  hand,  authorized  in  the  positive  belief  of  its  per- 
petuity. Yet  we  have  shown  at  least  that,  if  there  is  any 
positive  evidence  of  its  perpetuity  from  other  sources, 
that  evidence  is  unembarrassed  and  free,  and  is  to  be 
allowed  all  its  force.  More  than  this  even.  The  pre- 
sumption, at  this  stage  of  the  argument,  is  in  favor  of  the 
perpetuity  of  the  material  universe.  The  material  uni- 


the  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  243 


verse  now  exists.  All  the  destruction  which  revelation 
attests  is  to  come  upon  it,  does  not  amount  to  its  anni- 
hilation. It  is  therefore  to  exist,  notwithstanding  such 
destruction.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  that  God  intends 
ultimately  its  annihilation,  without  giving  us  any  inti- 
mation of  his  purpose.  But  is  this  probable  ?  Is  it  not 
probable  that,  if  it  is  continued  after  the  judgment  at  all, 
it  is  to  be  continued  forever  ?  But  I  now  verge  on  another 
consideration,  which  I  allege,  in  connection  with  the  first, 
as  positive  evidence  of  the  perpetuity  of  the  material 
universe. 

2.  That  the  state  of  redeemed  men  after  the  judgment 
is  to  be  a»  permanent  one  for  immortality.  The  descrip- 
tions of  the  Scriptures  are  full,  that  the  future  inheritance 
of  the  saints  is  permanent,  incorruptible,  and  unfading  in 
its  glory.  Now  if  the  righteous  in  their  immortal  state 
are  to  be  totally  severed  from  a  material  universe,  they 
must  be  severed  from  it,  either  by  its  annihilation  or  by 
their  removal  beyond  its  bounds. 

If  they  are  totally  severed  from  the  material  universe 
by  its  annihilation,  then  this  annihilation  must  take  place, 
either  at  the  period  of  their  entrance  upon  immortality 
or  at  some  period  afterwards.  But  at  the  time  of  their 
entrance  on  immortality,  they  cannot  be  separated  from 
the  material  universe  by  means  of  its  annihilation  :  for  it 
is  not  then  annihilated,  as  we  have  already  seen.  The 
destruction,  which  immediately  precedes  their  admission 
into  their  immortal  state,  is  simply  that  of  this  world,  and 
that,  not  the  annihilation  of  its  substance.  If  they  are 
ever  severed  from  the  material  universe,  therefore,  by  its 
annihilation,  they  must  thus  be  severed  from  it  at  some 
period  afterwards.  But  how  can  this  comport  with  all 
the  many  declarations  of  Scripture,  which  represent  their 
state  to  be  permanent,  to  be  incorruptible,  never  to  fade 
away — to  be  undiminished  and  undiminishing  in  its  ingre- 
dients of  glory  ?  If,  on  their  entrance  upon  an  immortal 
inheritance,  their  dwelling  should  be  assigned  them 
within  the  bounds,  amid  the  beauties  and  glories  of  a 
material  creation,  there  would  be  doubtless  many  sources 


244  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter 


of  joy  and  praise,  arising  out  of  these  relations  of  their 
being :  and  could  it  comport  with  the  permanent  and 
unfading  nature  of  the  inheritance,  which  had  always 
been  held  out  to  their  expectations  in  the  promises,  ever 
afterwards  to  eject  them  from  these  habitations  of  joy  ;  to 
strip  them  of  these  sources  of  blessing  ;  and  throw  them 
forth  as  wanderers  on  mere  empty  space  ? 

From  the  immutable  permanence  of  the  inheritance  to 
be  given  to  the  righteous  therefore,  we  infer  that  they  are 
not  to  be  severed  in  their  immortal  state  from  a  material 
universe  by  means  of  its  annihilation  ;  if  the  severance 
therefore  is  to  take  place,  it  must  be  not  by  its  annihila- 
tion, but  by  means  of  their  own  removal  beyond  its 
bounds. 

But  if  they  are  severed  from  it  by  removal  beyond  its 
bounds,  this  severance  must  take  place,  if  at  all,  at  their 
first  entrance  on  immortality,  while  as  yet  the  material 
creation  exists :  otherwise,  if  it  takes  place  after  their 
entrance  into  its  bounds  and  within  its  glories,  whether 
the  material  creation  be  continued  forever  afterwards  or 
not,  they  must  experience  the  same  change  in  their  subse- 
quent removal  and  exile,  which  we  have  already  con- 
sidered as  incompatible  with  the  unfading  glories  of  their 
inheritance.  Are  they  then  removed  beyond  the  bounds 
of  the  material  universe,  on  their  first  entrance  upon  im- 
mortality ?  This  is  the  only  question  that  remains.  The 
consideration  of  the  unchanging  state  of  the  righteous  in 
their  immortality,  does  not  alone  enable  us  to  answer  this 
question  :  yet,  if  it  can  be  shown  that  the  full  glories  of 
their  immortality  have  any  dependence  oh  their  connec- 
tion with  the  material  universe,  the  question  will  be  met ; 
and  the  proper  evidence  furnished,  that  they  will  not  be 
removed  from  the  bounds  of  the  material  universe  on 
their  entrance  upon  their  full  immortality.  The  present 
argument  has  gone  no  farther  than  to  show  that,  if  they 
are  connected  with  a  material  universe  on  their  first 
entrance  into  eternity,  then  it  is  not  consistent  with  the 
testimony  to  the  permanency  of  their  immortal  state,  that 
the  connection  should  afterwards  cease.  But  to  render 


tlic  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  245 


the    argument    complete,    I    now    advance    another   con- 
sideration. 

3.  That  the  preparation  of  the  righteous  for  immor- 
tality, made  within  the  bounds  of  the- material  creation, 
and  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  of  their  bodies  at  the 
period  of  entering  on  their  immortality,  show  that  the 
full  and  complete  glory  of  their  immortal  state  depends, 
in  part  at  least,  on  their  connection  with  a  material  uni- 
verse. They  are  fitted  for,  and  enter  on,  their  immortal 
state,  not  as  disembodied  spirits,  but  as  spirits  clothed 
with  a  bodily  organism  to  connect  them  with  a  material 
universe. 

There  are  many  and  vague  declamations  often  made 
about  matter  and  spirit,  as  if  the  one  were  essentially  vile 
and  the  other  essentially  pure ;  and  as  if  the  great  effort 
of  man  should  be  to  extricate  himself  from  the  one  and 
absorb  his  being  in  the  other.  But  this  is  not  consistent 
with  the  order  of  creation,  which  assigns  to  man  these 
diverse  parts  of  his  complex  being  ;  nor  with  the  order  of 
providence,  which  assigns  him  the  duties  of  preparation 
for  immortality  in  this  complex  nature ;  or  with  the 
awards  of  the  future,  which  place  him,  with  this  complex 
nature  still,  on  the  retributions  of  eternity.  The  truth  is, 
that  this  organic  life  of  ours,  which  is  the  necessary 
medium  of  our  connection  with  the  material  universe, 
though  the  inlet  to  us  of  many  temptations,  (as  are  also 
the  constituent  elements  of  our  minds,)  is  not  the  source 
of  temptation  alone  :  it  ministers  to  us  many  pleasures 
which  are  pure  ;  it  subserves  the  purposes  of  our  mental 
and  moral  education  ;  it  opens  to  us  many  beautiful,  sub- 
lime, instructive  lessons  in  the  works  of  our  Creator. 
And  whatever  fine  spun  theories  any  may  propound,  of 
literal  abstraction  from  matter  and  literal  absorption  in 
God,  our  grand  duty  and  grand  preparation  for  immor- 
tality is,  to  consecrate  both  body  and  spirit  to  God — to 
render  this  organic  life  and  our  connection  with  the 
material  world  subservient  to  our  discipline  for  a  higher 
life.  And  though  this  present  structure  of  flesh  and 
blood  is  not  sufficiently  refined  for  an  immortal  life,  yet 


246  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter  within 


utterly  to  divest  us  of  any,  and  to  send  us  forth  mere  dis- 
embodied spirits  upon  empty  space,  would  be  to  create  a 
chasm  between  our  present  and  future  life  too  great  and 
devastating  to  minister  to  our  perfection  and  highest  joy. 
It  would  be  like  the  devastation,  though  not  so  great,  of 
annihilating  the  souls  which  we  have  here  consecrated  to 
Christ,  and  sending  us  forth  upon  the  theater  of  eternity 
with  only  the  animal  senses  of  an  organic  life.  Man  is  not 
complete  here  without  both  ;  nor  his  education  for  eter- 
nity complete,  without  the  consecration  of  both  to  Christ ; 
nor  will  his  joy  in  eternity  be  complete,  without  the  con- 
tinuance, the  refinement,  and  perfection  of  both  in  that 
higher  state.  For  this  reason,  the  intermediate  state  of 
the  soul  between  death  and  the  resurrection  is  unfitted  to 
the  full  perfection  of  redeemed  man  ;  and  revelation 
teaches  us,  that  he  is  not  to  enter  on  the  full  glories  of 
immortality  till,  by  resurrection,  he  is  invested  with  a' 
body  strong,  incorruptible  and  glorious. 

Can  it  be  then  that  man,  educated  for  an  immortal  state 
in  the  body  and  within  the  material  creation,  and  raised 
again  after  death,  with  a  pure  ethereal  body,  for  entrance 
on  that  state,  shall  be  utterly  removed,  on  his  entrance 
into  it,  from  the  material  universe  ?  Does  not  the  pre- 
paration of  this  life  and  the  resurrection  of  the  body 
furnish  evidence,  that  God  designs  the  continuance  of  a 
material  system  still,  and  the  residence  of  man  during  his 
immortality  somewhere  within  its  bounds  ?  The  doctrine 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  teaches  us,  at  least,  that 
redeemed  man  will  have  an  organic  structure  to  add  in 
some  way  to  the  joys  of  his  immortality — that  some 
medium  of  connection  with  a  material  universe  will  still 
be  attached  to  his  being.  But  of  what  use  will  be  this 
structure,  if  not  to  constitute  relations  between  him  and 
such  a  universe — if  not  to  give  him,  within  the  bounds  of 
such  a  universe,  those  materials  of  joy  and  praise  which 
arise  from  the  Creator's  works  of  wisdom  and  love,  and 
for  which  he  has  been  educated  in  the  scenes  of  this  life  ? 

To  this  course  of  argument  in  favor  of  the  conclusion^ 
that  after  the  judgment  the  righteous  are  to  have  their 


the  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  247 


dwelling  within  the  bounds  of  the  material  universe,  I 
will  only  add  the  positive  testimony  of  revelation. 

I  observe  therefore  4,  That  revelation  affords  us  posi- 
tive testimony  in  favor  of  the  conclusion.  "  Neverthe- 
less," says  Peter — notwithstanding  the  conflagration  of 
the  world  at  the  last  day — "  according  to  his  promise,  we 
look  for  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness."  There  can  be  no  doubt  here  that  the 
apostle  speaks  literally  of  a  material  creation.  He  had 
spoken  of  the  heavens  and  earth  that  were,  which  were 
once  desolated  by  the  waters.  He  had  spoken  of  the 
heavens  and  earth  that  now  are,  reserved  unto  fire.  And 
after  describing  their  destruction  by  fire,  he  immediately 
adds  :  "  Nevertheless  we,  according  to  his  promise,  look 
for  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  right- 
eousness." Can  there  be  a  doubt  here  that  the  descrip- 
tion is  literal  ? — so  far,  at  least,  as  to  imply  a  local  and 
material  habitation — that  the  world,  once  purgated  of  the 
wicked  by  water,  and  then  purgated  and  renewed  by  fire, 
is  thenceforth  to  be  the  delightful  habitation  of  the  right- 
eous ?  Or,  if  we  consider,  as  some  have  done,  the  catas- 
trophe of  the  last  conflagration  as  still  more  extensive,  yet 
the  reconstruction  of  a  world  with  its  heavens  is  clearly 
asserted  as  literal,— to  be  the  dwelling-place  of  the  right- 
eous—so that  the  residence  of  the  redeemed,  still  within 
the  bounds  of  a  physical  universe,  is  obviously  intended 
by  the  apostle ;  who  would  not  send .  forth  the  purified 
and  redeemed  inhabitants  of  this  world  from  their  burn- 
ing dwelling,  homeless  and  shelterless,  as  wanderers 
through  infinite  space  ;  but  plant  them  in  a  purer  and 
more  glorious  world,  under  serener  skies,  without  dis- 
turbance or  convulsion  more,  to  be  happily  employed 
with  their  vigorous  and  immortal  powers  in  studying  the 
works  and  ways — the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God  ;  in 
assisting  each  other  in  growing  up  into  his  likeness  for 
ever ;  and  in  forever  uniting  in  acts  of  high  devotion  and 
praise  before  the  manifestations  of  his  heavenly  majesty. 

This  expectation  of  which  Peter  speaks,  he  asserts,  is 
founded  on  divine  promise.  "  We,  according  to  his  pro- 


248  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter  within 


mise."  Now  Isaiah,  in  prophetic  imagery,  had  spoken  oi 
the  change  of  the  Jewish  economy  and  the  introduction 
of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  on  the  earth,  at  his  first  coming, 
in  such  language, — "  Behold  I  create  new  heavens  and  a 
new  earth  :  and  the  former  shall  not  be  remembered  nor 
come  into  mind.  But  be  ye  glad  and  rejoice  forever  in 
that  which  I  create,  for  behold  I  create  Jerusalem  a 
rejoicing  and  her  people  a  joy."  Yet  even  here,  while 
looking  forward  to  the  first  coming  of  Christ,  and  the 
blessings  diffused  by  his  gospel  on  this  earth,  the  prophet 
might  have  dimly  discerned,  in  still  remoter  distance,  his 
second  coming  to  dwell  with  his  redeemed,  and  have  seen 
the  distant  realities  of  the  Ipst  conflagration,  and  the 
reconstruction  of  a  new  world  and  heavens  for  the  ever- 
lasting dwelling  of  his  purified  and  triumphant  people. 
Jesus  Christ,  while  on  earth,  frequently  spoke  of  his 
coming  to  judge  the  world,  to  gather  from  among  the 
redeemed  all  the  wicked,  that  he  might  cast  them  out  into 
punishment,  and  to  dwell  with  all  the  redeemed  in  their 
immortal  life.  And  he  told  his  disciples,  that  at  the  time 
of  the  renovation  of  all  things,  when  he  should  come  in 
his  glory,  they  should  sit  on  twelve  thrones.  And  no 
doubt,  in  the  promise  of  the  resurrection  of  his  followers, 
and  their  union  to  him  in  the  heavenly  state,  there  was 
conveyed  to  the  minds  of  his  apostles  the  idea  of  some 
abode,  not  perishable,  fitted  to  their  new  organization 
and  life,  where  they  should  dwell  in  the  immediate  pres- 
ence of  God,  amid  the  bright  and  full  manifestations  of 
his  majesty.  The  idea  which  the  apostles  received  from 
their  Saviour,  however,  is  gathered  distinctly  from  the 
writings  of  two  of  them,  Peter  and  John.  Peter  says  to 
the  Christians  to  whom  he  wrote,  as  if  he  had  often  told 
them  so  in  his  preaching  about  Jesus  Christ,  "  We, 
according  to  his  promise,  look  for  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth."  But  John,  in  the  Revelations,  has  more  fully 
completed  the  sketch  of  those  glorious  scenes,  which 
Isaiah  dimly  saw  and  which  Christ  foretold.  Chapter 
xxi  :  1-4.  "  And  I  saw  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  : 
for  the  first  heaven  and  the  first  earth  were  passed  away  ; 


the  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  249 


and  there  was  no  more  sea.  And  I  John  saw  the  holy 
city,  new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  God  out  of  heav- 
en, prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband.  And 
I  heard  a  great  voice  out  of  heaven,  saying,  Behold  the 
tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and  he  will  dwell  with 
them,  and  they  shall  be  his  people,  and  God  himself  shall 
be  with  them  and  be  their  God.  And  God  shall  wipe 
away  all  tears  from  their  eyes ;  and  there  shall  be  no 
more  death,  neither  sorrow  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there 
be  any  more  pain  ;  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away. 
And  he  that  sat  upon  the  throne  said,  Behold  I  make  all 
things  new."  This  was  the  last  vision  of  John,  which 
presented  to  him  the  happy  state  of  the  righteous  after 
the  close  of  the  last  judgment,  and  after  the  casting  of  the 
wicked  into  the  lake  of  fire,  which  is  the  second  death  ; 
and  the  remainder  of  the  chapter,  with  the  chapter  that 
follows  it,  and  closes  the  book,  is  occupied,  principally, 
in  setting  forth  more  minutely  the  glories  of  the  New 
Jerusalem, — the  great  citadel  of  the  renovated  earth,— 
the  city  of  the  immediate  presence  of  God  and  the  Lamb, 
whose  presence  constitutes  its  only  temple  of  worship, 
whose  glories  pour  over  it  the  beams  of  eternal  noon, 
from  whose  throne  wells  forth  the  river  of  the  water  of 
life — the  holy  city  of  joy  and  worship,  to  which  all  the 
nations  of  the  holy  and  saved  have  free  access  forever. 

This  vision  of  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth,  it  is 
manifest,  refers  to  the  final  state  of  the  righteous,  and  not 
to  the  millennial.  For  the  millennium,  which  John  fore- 
saw in  a  previous  vision,  precedes  the  day  of  final  judg- 
ment, but  the  new  heavens  and  earth  follow  it ;  the  mil- 
lenium  is  for  a  limited  season,  but  this  is  forever  and 
ever  ;  under  the  millennium,  Satan  is  bound  till  near  the 
close,  when  he  is  loosed  again  ;  but  in  the  new  heaven  and 
earth  there  is  no  more  approach  of  the  enemy — Satan 
and  all  his  accomplices  having  been  cast  into  the  lake  of 
fire  and  brimstone,  to  be  tormented  forever  and  ever. 

Whatever  interpretation  therefore  is  given  to  the  vision 
of  the  millennium  ;  whether,  as  the  most  judicious  exposi- 
tors have  judged,  it  is  a  period  of  the  universal  triumph 

33 


250  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter  wit  kin 


of  the  cause  and  friends  of  Christ  in  putting  down  every 
system  of  opposition  before  upheld  on  earth,  and  of  his 
taking  spiritual  possession  of  all  the  nations  ;  or  whether, 
as  the  literalists  will  have  it,  who  warn  us  to  expect  very 
speedily  the  personal  coming  of  Christ,  it  is  a  period  in 
which  Christ,  surrounded  by  the  raised  martyrs,  will  be 
bodily  present  on  earth  to  set  up  a  universal  monarchy— 
to  carry  on  the  work  of  converting  and  sanctifying  men 
by  sight  instead  of  by  faith  :  I  say,  whatever  interpretation 
be  adopted  respecting  the  vision  of  the  millennium,  it  is 
clear  that  the  vision  of  the  new  heaven  and  earth  presents 
a  state  of  things  altogether  distinct  from  it,  and  not  to 
take  place  till  after  the  millennium  and  after  the  universal 
judgment. 

We  are  clear  therefore  in  the  conclusion  that  this  final 
vision  of  the  apostle  sets  forth  the  final  and  immortal 
state  of  the  righteous,  and  depicts  that  da}7  of  eternal 
glory  at  the  end  of  these  present  days  of  trial,  when 
Daniel  shall  again  stand  in  his  lot,  and  Job  shall  see  his 
Redeemer  standing  upon  the  earth  ;  when  the  Redeemer 
shall  come  to  bring  up  his  people  from  their  graves,  and 
to  transform  those  who  are  still  living  ;  that,  with  ethereal 
bodies  like  his  own,  they  may  live  with  him  forever  amid 
the  multiplied  and  perfected  glories  of  immortality.  And 
though,  in  the  particulars  given  of  the  new  Jerusalem,  it 
may  not  be  the  intention  of  revelation  to  sketch  precisely 
the  scenes  of  that  state  in  their  minute  outlines,  but  to 
present  the  ingredients  of  it  in  emblems;  yet  it  were  to 
depart  too  far  from  the  vision  to  deny,  that  any  material 
creation  with  its  glories  can  be  included  or  intended. 

I  will  close,  with  presenting  to  you  the  conclusion  of 
Dr.  Andrew  Fuller  respecting  this  vision,  as  given  in  his 
Lectures  on  the  Revelation.  "  The*  whole  of  what  is  said, 
instead  of  describing  the  heaven  of  heavens,  represents 
the  glory  of  that  state  as  coming  down  upon  the 
earth.  It  is  a  representation  of  heavenly  glory,  in  so  far 
as  that  glory  relates  to  the  state  of  this  earth  on  which  we 
dwell.  The  earth  will  not  be  annihilated  by  fire  any 
more  than  it  was  by  water.  It  will  be  purified  from  sin 


the  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  ^   251 


and  all  its  effects.  The  generations  of  a  corrupt  race  of 
creatures  having  terminated,  it  will  become  the  perfect 
and  perpetual  abode  of  the  righteous." 

In  the  argument  which  I  have  now  completed,  it  has 
been  my  design,  not  to  dwell  on  the  more  important  part 
of  the  immortal  life  of  the  saints,  in  their  purely  spiritual 
joys,  as  righteous  beings  communing  in  spirit  with  one 
another  and  with  God,  but  to  complete  the  picture  of 
that  immortal  life,  by  presenting  a  scene  of  subordinate 
and  concurring  joy,  in  their  converse  still  with  the  glories 
of  a  more  finished  physical  creation,  and  that — without 
attempting  to  establish  more  than  the  general  outline  :— 
that  the  saints,  re-clothed  with  a  pure  and  ethereal  organi- 
zation, which  is  strong  and  imperishable  for  immortality, 
may  yet  move  among  the  visible  works  of  God;  and 
mingle,  as  they  do  here  on  earth,  yet  in  sublimer  and  more 
exalted  ways,  in  those  beauties  and  works  of  creation, 
which  instruct  the  mind,  which  charm  the  taste,  and 
afford  the  heart  fresh  matter  of  rejoicing  and  praise  before 
the  eternal  throne. 

And  now,  as  we  close  our  meditations,  let  us  attend  to 
the  practical  conclusion  of  the  apostle :  "  Seeing  that  ye 
look  for  such  things,  be  diligent,  that  ye  may  be  found  of 
him  in  peace,  without  spot  and  blameless." 

We  have  been  contemplating  the  opening  scenes  of 
eternity.  We  behold  the  righteous,  who  have  followed 
the  Redeemer  on  earth,  rescued  from  the  powerful  flames 
that  are  to  consume  the  world,  and  replaced  in  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth,  beyond  sorrow,  decay  and  death  ; 
blest  forever  with  the  purity  and  love  of  perfect  beings  ; 
growing  in  the  love  and  friendship  of  God,  and  gathering 
fresh  incense  to  offer  upon  his  altar  from  the  glories  of 
his  surrounding  works. 

O  !  is  not  this  an  object  worthy  to  enlist  the  aspiration 
of  our  hearts,  and  encourage  us  in  the  diligent  use  of 
those  means  of  grace  which  our  Lord  now  grants  us  ; 
and  should  it  not  call  off  our  thoughts  and  hearts  from 
those  sins  and  deceptive  pleasures  which  pollute  our 
souls,  and  which,  persisted  in,  must  render  us  unfit  for  so 


252  The  Righteous  to  Live  Hereafter  within 


glorious  an  inheritance,  and  cut  us  off  forever  from  its 
joys? 

We  are  advancing  to  this  day  of  God,  when  Christ  shall 
come  in  the  heavens  in  great  glory,  and,  refining  the 
world  by  the  flames  of  universal  desolation,  shall  put  his 
redeemed  in  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth,  con- 
structed upon  the  ruins  of  the  old,  and  shall  cast  off  the 
wicked  into  the  lake  of  devouring  fire.  O  !  how  much  will 
be  involved — in  respect  to  each  one  of  us — in  the  one 
question  whether  we  then  meet  our  Lord  in  peace,  with- 
out spot  and  blameless,  or  meet  him  in  wrath,  defiled  still 
with  reigning  iniquities  ! 

If  we  then  are  found  among  the  reconciled  and  sancti- 
fied, what  will  be  our  joy  to  enter  on  the  new  earth  of 
purity  !  God  and  the  Lamb  ever  with  us,  with  the  shining 
light  of  their  friendship  !  Friends  with  us,  who  drink 
sweetly  their  joys  from  the  same  fountain  of  purity  !  And 
everything  around  us  to  instruct  our  minds  and  cheer 
our  hearts  :  the  beauties  of  color  and  form,  the  concord 
of  sweet  sounds,  the  bright  waters  of  the  river  of  life, 
the  ambrosial  fragrance  of  the  trees  of  life  ;  our  powers  of 
motion  strong  as  archangel's,  and  all  the  glories  with  us 
that  an  Almighty  Architect  can  minister  to  his  delighted 
children  in  his  material  works !  O,  thus  escaped  from  the 
pollutions  and  miseries  of  sin,  and  triumphant  over  death, 
the  first  and  the  second,  how  shall  we  adore  God,  and  praise 
him  for  all  the  grace  we  sought  and  received  from  him  in 
this  world  ;  by  which  we  met  him  in  peace,  and  entered, 
for  eternity,  pure  and  blameless,  into  our  high  places  of 
rest!  Every  joy  there  is  innocent.  Every  varying  joy 
goes  to  swell  the  sum  that  is  welling  up  in  every  heart, 
and  to  bind  all  in  closer  bonds  of  love,  praise  and  devoted- 
ness  to  God  and  the  Lamb  forever. 

But  if,  through  present  negligence  and  sin,  we  continue 
estranged  from  God,  and  meet  him  at  last  unreconciled 
and  enemies,  what  must  be  our  wretchedness  to  be  cast 
off  from  his  presence  and  from  the  society  of  his  love,  and 
to  take  up  our  residence  in  the  flames  of  devouring  wrath. 
If  in  that  world,  perchance,  you  lift  up  your  eyes,  and 


the  Scenes  of  a  Material  Universe.  253 


descry  afar  off  the  world  and  mansions  of  the  blest ;  if,  in 
your  utter  destitution  and  torment,  you  behold  them  in 
their  shining  and  immortal  robes,  quaffing  joy  from  the  pure 
water  of  the  river  of  life,  with  all  the  resources  of  infinite 
love  pouring  forth  to  charm  the  intellect,  the  taste,  the 
heart,  O  !  how  must  you  reproach  yourselves  that,  in  your 
present  life,  you  suffered  all  these  glories  to  pass  before 
you,  presented  to  you  and  pressed  upon  your  acceptance 
by  heavenly  mercy,  in  vain  ;  and,  in  neglect  of  God  and  his 
service,  seized  upon  the  momentary  objects,  included  in 
the  present  plan  of  the  world — which  were  to  be  burned 
in  the  fire — as  your  only  portion  of  joy  for  eternity  ! 

O  !  then  now,  before  your  Lord  has  come,  now,  while  on 
his  throne  of  mercy  he  asks  you  to  procure  of  him  recon- 
ciliation and  purity,  now,  while  the  fate  of  eternity  is 
pending  and  turning,  be  diligent  in  attending  to  the 
great  duties  of  religion.  Be  diligent  in  consecrating 
both  your  bodies  and  spirits  to  the  pure  and  holy  service 
of  God  through  Jesus  Christ.  Be  diligent,  that  ye  may 
be  found  of  the  Saviour  at  his  coming,  in  peace,  without 
spot  and  blameless :  that  so  an  entrance  may  be  minis- 
tered unto  you  into  his  everlasting  kingdom,  and  that, 
with  all  the  millions  of  his  redeemed,  gathered  in  all  ages 
and  from  all  nations,  you  may  participate,  in  body  and 
spirit,  in  all  the  varied  glories  of  that  kingdom  forever. 


THE  PURCHASE  OF  THE  TRUTH. 


[A    BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.] 


PROVERBS    XXIII:    23. 
BUY  THE  TRUTH. 

A  VERY  short  precept ;  easily  remembered  ;  difficult  to 
practise  always  ;  yet  ever  indispensable  to  our  well-being. 

To  all  classes  of  men,  truth  is  the  only  safe  basis  of 
their  estimate  of  things  and  of  their  practical  decisions. 

At  all  periods  of  life  and  in  all  situations,  there  arise 
practical  questions  which  we  must  decide.  And  if  our 
welfare  demands  that  a  decision  be  made,  still  more  essen- 
tial to  our  wTell-being  is  it,  that  our  decision  be  made  in 
accordance  with  the  truth. 

To  the  life  of  the  scholar,  the  precept  applies  with 
special  force :  for  that  he  should  utter  fallacies  or  act 
upon  them,  is  less  excusable  in  himself  and  more  danger- 
ous to  his  fellow-men.  He,  of  all  men,  can  best  afford  to 
pay  the  price  of  truth  :  and,  if  he  refuses  to  procure  it, 
he  can  most  easily  impose  his  false  articles  and  wares 
upon  the  community  for  the  true. 

But  what  is  the  truth  ? 

}VJicre  is  it  to  be  had? 

What  price  must  we  pay  for  it  ? 

Why  must  we  make  the  purchase  ? 

These  are  questions  which  will  lead  us  into  the  fuller 
appreciation  of  this  precept  of  wisdom.  The  answer  to 
them  will  show  us  the  nature ;  the  source ;  the  price  ;  and 
the  value  of  the  Truth. 

I.  What  is  the  Truth  ?  Solomon,  who  gave  us  the  pre- 
cept, has  not  defined  this  term,  considering  it  obvious,  no 


256  The  Purchase  of  the  Truth. 


doubt,  to  the  common  apprehension  of  mankind.  The 
very  question  was  once  put  in  the  judgment-hall  at  Jeru- 
salem to  a  greater,  than  Solomon,  perhaps  sneeringly, 
perhaps  sincerely  ;  but  no  answer  was  deemed  necessary 
on  that  occasion.  We  need  go  no  further  than  our  own 
consciousness  and  experience  for  an  answer.  We  have  all 
had  occasion  to  see  that  a  judgment  may  be  formed  on  a 
certain  subject,  or  an  affirmation  be  made,  which,  when 
tested,  differs  from  the  reality,  as  well  as  one  which  agrees 
with  it.  Now,  the  object  of  all  truth  is  to  represent  to 
the  mind  the  reality  of  things ;  and  truth  is  either  that 
judgment  of  the  mind,  or  that  affirmation  of  a  judgment 
in  language,  which  corresponds  to  the  reality  of  things. 
The  agreement  of  the  judgments  of  the  mind,  or  of 
affirmations,  with  the  reality  of  things,  then,  constitutes 
truth  ;  while  their  disagreement  is  the  essence  of  error. 
Conformity  to  the  reality  of  things,  is  then  the  most  gen- 
eral and  comprehensive  idea  we  can  form  of  truth  :  and 
this  quality  may  belong,  either  to  verbal  propositions 
which  affirm  a  judgment  of  the  mind,  or  to  the  mental 
judgments  themselves.  The  precept  of  Solomon,  no 
doubt,  respects  our  mental  judgments  and  decisions  ;  that, 
as  these  may  be  true  or  false,  we  should  procure,  at  what- 
ever price  it  may  cost  us,  (at  least  on  all  questions  that 
concern  our  interests  and  our  duties,)  such  judgments  as 
are  true  and  correspondent  to  the  nature  and  reality  of 
things.  For  one  may  procure  a  set  of  verbal  propositions 
which  are  true,  without  procuring  the  truth.  He  may 
buy  books  of  truth,  and  yet  in  his  mind  be  ignorant  and 
destitute  of  the  truths  they  contain.  Your  own  experi- 
ence tells  you  the  difference  between  owning  a  copy  of 
Euclid,  and  being  masters  of  geometrical  truth  ;  between 
furnishing  your  library  well,  and  well  informing  your  own 
spirit.  To  possess  the  truth,  one  must  see  that  his  views 
and  judgments  correspond  to  the  reality  of  things,  and 
that  they  do  not  differ  from  the  reality.  He  must  see 
that  his  judgments  rest  on  such  evidences  and  proofs,  as 
give  either  certainty  or  necessity  to  his  conclusions.  He 
must  settle  them  on  these  deep  and  firm  foundations.  He 


The  Purchase  of  tJie  TrutJi.  257 


must  have  the   moral  demonstration  of  certainty,  or  the 
scientific  demonstration  of  necessity. 

The  nature  of  Truth  in  the  mind,  then,  is  to  conceive  of 
things  as  they  are,  and  to  found  our  conceptions  on  reasons 
which  give  certainty  to  them,  or  necessity. 

II.  But  whence  are  we  to  procure  the  truth  ?  To  what 
source  must  we  look  to  inform  ourselves  ? 

To  conform  our  views  and  judgments  to  the  reality  of 
things,  it  is  clear  that  we  must  study  things  themselves 
in  their  reality.  The  universe  of  existent  things  is  before 
us  :  and  in  order  to  ascertain  the  nature,  properties  and 
relations  of  existent  things,  in  which  the  whole  field  of 
truth  is  comprehended,  we  must,  in  each  specific  case,  see 
that  the  particular  property  or  relation  which  we  affirm 
or  judge  to  belong  to  a  thing,  does  belong  to  it  with 
certainty  or  by  necessity.  The  deep  sources  of  truth 
then  lie  in  universal  nature,  and  in  God,  the  author  of 
nature  :  for  these  comprehend  all  existent  things. 

Universal  nature  teaches  us  her  own  truths,  and  truths 
respecting  God.  For  in  this  field  of  study,  what  is  true 
in  the  natural,  the  intellectual  and  the  moral  world, 
becomes  obvious,  either  as  facts  of  which  our  conscious- 
ness or  our  observation  takes  cognizance,  or  as  general 
principles  obvious  to  intuition  or  experience,  or  as  truths 
deduced  as  the  necessary  consequences  and  conclusions 
of  the  reason.  That  which  is  true  here  is  seen  to  be  so 
in  its  own  nature,  independently  of  the  judgments  or 
affirmations  of  mankind.  It  is  therefore  to  nature  that  we 
look,  and  not  to  the  works  of  men,  for  the  deep  source  of 
truth.  Men  may  assist  us,  by  their  testimony  to  the 
knowledge  of  facts  beyond  our  personal  observation. 
They  may,  in  their  published  works,  set  before  us  their 
deductions  of  truth  from  nature.  But  we  are  to  be  judges 
of  the  process  and  results,  whether  they  are  true  to  the 
nature  of  things  or  not.  We  are  to  see  that  their  con- 
clusions are  founded  on  evidence  and  proofs,  which  show 
certainty  or  necessity,  if  we  would  obtain  a  personal 
possession  of  the  truth. 

34 


258  The  Purchase  of  the  Truth. 


But  the  field  of  nature  is  itself  the  product  of  the 
Creator,  and,  from  the  consequences  of  his  agency  seen 
in  his  works,  we  may  make  some  deductions  respecting 
him,  their  author,  as  certain  and  necessary.  From  the 
visible  effects,  we  may  reason  to  the  unseen  cause :  and 
thus  nature  teaches  us  truths  beyond  her  own  domains ; 
truths  respecting  God  ;  his  nature,  perfections,  thoughts, 
designs. 

But  a  source  of  truth,  higher  than  nature,  is  the  infinite 
God  himself.  In  respect  to  his  own  being,  perfections, 
purposes  and  works,  his  knowledge  is  perfect ;  his  testi- 
mony infallible.  A  revelation  from  the  Author  of  nature 
expresses  his  infallible  judgment,  and  gives  the  certainty 
of  truth  to  his  creatures.  Jesus,  when  he  was  in  that 
world  which  was  made  by  him,  declared ;  "  for  this  cause 
came  I  into  the  world  that  I  should  bear  witness  to  the 
truth."  "  /  am  the  truth:"  as  God,  comprising  in  him- 
self the  sum  of  all  truth ;  and  as  a  Revealer,  in  the  per- 
ceptions of  his  understanding  and  in  all  his  utterances, 
conformed  to  the  reality  of  things.  Here  in  revelation  is 
truth  expressed :  and  here  is  a  deep  and  infallible  source 
of  truth.  In  our  inquiries  therefore  into  the  truth,  we 
are  to  come  to  the  affirmations  of  his  word :  and  our 
inquiries  terminate  on  the  true  or  the  false  interpretation 
of  the  language.  We  are  to  distinguish  true  interpreta- 
tion and  inference  from  false :  and  our  reliance  is  not  on 
the  interpretations  of  our  fellow-men  or  their  judgments, 
but  on  those  proofs  and  reasonings  which  render  a  given 
interpretation  certain  and  necessary. 

III.  But  what  is  the  price  we  must  pay  in  order  to  procure 
the  truth  ?  What !  methinks  I  hear  some  exclaim,  is  a  price 
demanded  for  obtaining  the  truth?  Are  not  the  books 
of  nature  and  revelation  open  and  free  for  our  perusal 
and  study  ?  Are  we  not  invited  to  come  and  receive  the 
benefits  of  divine  instruction  without  money  and  without 
price  ? 

True :  the  field  of  truth  is  open  and  free  for  us  to  enter 
and  occupy.  There  are  no  costs  imposed  other  than 
those  which  arise  of  necessity  out  of  our  nature,  charac- 


The  Purchase  of  t/ic  Truth.  259 


ter  and  condition.  The  means  which  our  fellow-men 
impart  to  us,  to  aid  us  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  by  the  com- 
munication of  their  knowledge  in  teaching  or  by  books, 
justly  demand  a  literal  price  :  and,  were  I  speaking  to 
that  point,  I  might  give  some  advice  as  to  selection, 
rather  than  the  price :  that  you  furnish  your  libraries 
with  the  Bible,  the  great  fountain  of  truth,  and  with  such 
books,  as  lead  you  to  a  knowledge  of  God  and  his  works, 
and  qualify  you  for  the  duties  of  your  station. 

Yet  with  all  the  means  of  knowledge  in  our  possession, 
in  order  to  procure  to  ourselves  the  advantages  of  the 
truth  on  our  course  of  life,  we  must  needs  pay  the  price  of 

Mental  labor,  to  undergo  the  necessary  processes  of 
study  ; 

Temperance,  to  subordinate  our  sensual  enjoyments  and 
passions  to  the  reason  ; 

Moral  courage,  to  venture  on  the  ill-will  of  the  false  and 
licentious  ;  and 

Humility,  to  remain  contented  with  ignorance  in  matters 
beyond  our  present  opportunities  of  knowledge. 

Severe  mental  labor  is  a  part  of  the  price  you  must  pay 
in  order  to  procure  the  truth.  You  have  learned,  in  the 
course  of  mental  discipline  to  which  you  have  already 
been  subjected,  that  close,  methodical,  protracted  effort, 
is  necessary  to  render  yourselves  masters  of  the  truth  in 
any  branch  of  knowledge.  But,  in  your  researches  after 
truth,  you  have  but  just  begun  that  course  to  which  your 
whole  after  life  should  be  devoted.  There  are  many 
fields  of  knowledge  to  invite  your  attention  through  life ; 
and  if  you  would  make  proficiency  in  them,  so  as  to  have 
the  truth  clearly  and  fully  in  your  possession,  there  must 
be  passed  many  and  many  an  hour  of  close  attention  and 
study.  And  the  questions  of  conduct  and  duty,  that  will 
ever  be  rising  up  to  demand  of  you  the  estimate  of  truth, 
cannot  lie  neglected  with  safety.  They  must  be  taken 
up,  they  must  be  analyzed,  they  must  be  brought  to  the 
standards  of  evidence  and  duty,  and  your  judgment  must 
ascertain  those  conclusions  which  are  certain  and  founded 
on  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  if  you  would  stand  firm  in 


260  The  Purchase  of  the  Truth. 


the  truth.  A  life  then  of  severe  study,  that  will  examine 
matters  fully  and  thoroughly  to  their  foundations ;  of 
methodical  study,  that  will  take  up  one  thing  at  a  time,  and 
proceed  with  it  in  that  true  and  logical  order  which  alone 
leads  to  a  clear  and  satisfactory  conclusion  ;  of  constant 
study,  that  will  take  up  and  thoroughly  solve  the  new 
questions  of  interest  or  duty  that  are  continually  arising 
in  this  world  ; — such  a  life  is  the  price  exacted  of  you,  if 
you  would  be  sure  to  have  the  truth  with  you  on  your 
way. 

Another  necessary  condition  of  having  the  truth  with 
you  on  your  course,  is  that  of  temperance,  to  subordinate 
your  sensual  enjoyments  and  passions  to  the  decisions  of 
the  reason.  To  say  nothing  of  the  time  consumed  by 
those  supremely  devoted  to  sensual  enjoyments,  which 
is  subtracted  from  the  opportunities  of  intellectual  effort, 
or  of  that  clog  which  is  put  upon  the  mental  operations 
themselves  by  too  great  indulgence  of  bodily  appetites 
and  passions,  both  which  must  detract  from  the  progress 
of  the  student  in  all  the  fields  of  knowledge,  I  now  speak 
of  the  influence  of  false  tastes  and  appetites,  to  pervert 
the  judgments  of  the  mind  on  the  great  topics  of  our 
moral  and  spiritual  interests  and  duties.  The  estimate  of 
good  and  evil,  of  right  and  wrong,  must,  if  made  in  truth, 
rest  on  the  basis  of  reason  and  not  of  the  passions.  The 
passions  are  limited  and  local,  and  not  universal  and  per- 
petual in  their  dictates,  as  is  the  reason.  They  exag- 
gerate the  good  or  diminish  the  evil  of  their  own  estimates 
beyond  truth  and  reason :  they  are  ready  to  prejudice  the 
cause  of  truth  and  set  up  that  of  error.  There  is  a  neces- 
sity therefore  of  subordinating  the  passions  of  our  sensual 
and  earthly  nature  to  the  dictates  of  the  pure  reason  or 
the  clear  revelation,  which  are  our  only  safe  guides,  if  we 
would  procure  the  truth.  This  is  a  part  of  the  price  we 
must  pay,  in  order  to  secure  ourselves  in  the  truth :  and 
to  most, — so  earthly  and  sensual  are  our  natures, — the 
price  is  great :  demanding  no  little  sum  of  self-denial  and 
self-government. 


The  Purchase  of  the  Trutli.  261 


Still  another  item  of  cost  to  us  in  securing  and  main- 
taining- the  truth  with  us  in  life,  is  that  of  moral  courage, 
to  bear,  when  necessary,  the  ill-will  of  the  false  or  the 
malicious.  The  history  of  our  world  abounds  in  exam- 
ples of  those,  who,  for  putting  faith  in  the  word  of  God 
and  the  dictates  of  reason, — who,  for  adhering  to  the 
truth,  have  suffered  from  the  ill-will  of  the  ignorant,  the 
prejudiced,  the  licentious  and  malicious.  There  have 
been  martyrs  to  the  truth  of  God,  to  the  truths  of  nature, 
to  moral  truths,  and  to  political.  So  ignorant  are  men, 
so  prejudiced  by  their  passions,  so  corrupt  often  in  their 
lives,  that  to  stand  up  among  them  as  the  holder  and 
defender  of  truth,  must  sometimes  cost  the  courage  of 
facing,  if  not  a  physical,  yet  a  moral  martyrdom.  To 
have  the  name  cast  out  as  evil,  to  be  defamed  and  mocked 
and  threatened,  is  the  punishment  visited  upon  them,  even 
in  the  best  regulated  communities,  from  the  ill-will  of 
opposers.  One  must  make  up  his  mind  then  to  pay  this 
cost  whenever  it  is  necessary,  if  he  would  be  a  holder  and 
friend  of  the  truth  :  The  moral  courage  to  decide  accord- 
ing to  truth  and  the  nature  and  reality  of  things,  however 
much  it  may  cause  us  to  differ  from  the  judgments,  the 
customs,  or  practices  of  the  age :  To  hold  on  to  the 
truth,  as  that  which  will  support  us  and  will  survive  the 
prejudices  and  ill-will  of  a  present  generation. 

I  have  named  also,  as  a  part  of  the  price  at  which  truth 
is  secured,  the  humility  that  remains  contented  in  igno- 
rance on  matters  beyond  our  present  opportunities  of 
knowledge.  There  is  a  pride,  which  is  much  in  the  way 
of  all  real  progress  in  knowledge,  and  we  must  sacrifice 
it  if  we  would  advance  in  the  truth.  The  pride  that 
claims  knowledge  without  having  it  in  possession,  and  the 
pride,  that  grasps  at  what  is  beyond  its  power.  The 
pride,  that  claims  to  know  what  it  has  not  yet  attained, 
surely  stands  in  the  way  of  ever  making  the  attainment ; 
and,  until  one  is  willing  to  sacrifice  such  a  pride,  and  con- 
fess, to  himself  at  least,  and  feel,  his  ignorance,  he  cannot 
truly  and  earnestly  set  himself  to  procure  the  truth  :  he 
must  remain  destitute  of  it.  But  there  is  a  pride  in  the 


262  The  Purchase  of  the  Truth. 


way  of  truth,  and  that  must  be  sacrificed  to  its  attain- 
ment : — a  pride  of  another  kind, — a  pride  which  grasps  at 
what  is  beyond  its  power.  There  are  some,  who  think 
themselves  equal  to  cope  at  once  with  all  the  branches  of 
knowledge;  and  thus  defeat  their  own  end  and  aim,  by 
grasping  at  too  much  and  at  what  is  beyond  their  power. 
They  would  fain  think  themselves  sufficient  to  master  all 
the  branches  of  science  and  all  the  departments  of  truth 
and  knowledge,  and  this  disposition,  by  preventing  their 
thorough  attention  to  the  study  of  any,  renders  them 
miserable  dabblers  in  all.  It  is  a  price  we  are  to  pay  for 
acquiring  truth,  that  we  have  the  humility  to  remain  con- 
fessedly ignorant  in  some  things,  while  we  are  faithfully 
studying  others.  We  may  thus  reach  a  larger  circle  of 
thoroughly  investigated  and  established  truth  in  the  end. 
This  humility  is  necessary,  too,  to  keep  us  to  the  attain- 
ments which  are  within  our  power.  For  the  time  and 
attention  bestowed  on  subjects  which  are  not  within  our 
power  and  means  of  attaining,  is  so  much  lost  from  our 
progress  in  those  which  are  attainable. 

These  considerations  set  before  you  the  necessary  cost 
at  which  you  are  to  procure  the  truth,  and  keep  it  with 
you  at  all  times  as  your  guide  in  life. 

IV.  But  why  should  we  make  the  purchase  ?  There  is 
something  in  the  precept  of  Solomon  that  exalts  greatly 
the  value  of  truth.  The  precept  is  absolute :  it  sets  no 
limit  on  the  price :  it  enjoins  the  purchase,  whatever  be 
the  cost.  Buy  the  truth.  Make  the  purchase  at  any  rate. 
Pav  the  price  whatever  it  be.  The  truth  will  be  of  far 
greater  worth  to  you  than  the  cost.  You  cannot  afford 
to  do  without  it,  in  the  management  of  any  of  your  inter- 
ests or  duties. 

But  wherein  consists  its  value  ?  What  is  that  value, 
compared  with  the  price?  What,  compared  with  the 
necessary  losses  to  arise  from  ignorance  and  error  ? 

The  value  of  truth  may  be  estimated  in  part  from  its 
positive  advantages,  as  a  treasure  of  joy  to  the  mind,  a 
qualification  for  doing  good  among  men,  a  means  of  serv- 


The  Purchase  of  the  Truth.  263 


ing   God  acceptably,   and  a  means  of  preparation  for  an 
immortal  life  with  God  in  his  kingdom. 

The  truth  is  itself  a  treasure  of  great  joy  to  our  minds. 
Truth  satisfies  the  understanding :  administering  to  that 
immortal  faculty  its  own  pure,  solid,  and  durable  aliment 
of  knowledge.  Who  can  tell  the  satisfaction  of  the  mind, 
when  turning  to  some  field  of  knowledge,  and  pursuing 
its  eager  search  after  the  truth,  its  perceptions  become 
clear  and  definite,  and  the  truth  is  first  seen  looming  up 
beyond  doubt  in  the  certainty  of  its  proofs  and  evidences. 
How  is  the  labor  of  the  process  at  once  turned  to  joy,  as 
the  discoverer  exclaims  :  "  I  have  it,  I  have  it  now !  " 
Yes,  he  has  it  now  for  an  everlasting  possession  among 
the  treasures  of  his  knowledge.  Not  only  does  truth 
give  satisfaction  to  the  understanding,  but  each  item  of 
truth  obtained  enlarges  the  comprehension  of  the  under- 
standing. A  new  treasure  is  added  to  its  stores,  a  new 
domain  from  the  field  of  knowledge  is  added  to  its  terri- 
tories. The  mind  thus,  by  acquiring  truth,  comprehends 
more  and  more  within  its  possessions;  and,  while  itself 
becomes  constantly  enlarged,  it  feeds  at  an  everlasting 
fountain.  For  truth,  the  aliment  on  which  the  under- 
standing feeds  with  expansive  joy,  ranges  on  forever 
beyond  the  world  and  time  and  all  created  things  into  the 
depths  of  the  infinite  spirit  of  Jehovah.  But  there  is 
more  in  the  treasures  of  truth  than  the  joy  of  knowledge. 
For  truth  supplies  the  pure  and  lovely  materials,  on  which 
the  imagination  and  the  heart  may  dwell  with  safety  and 
delight.  The  fields  of  beauty  and  loveliness  opened  to 
us  in  nature,  in  the  various  creations  of  God,  in  the  means 
and  ends  of  his  providence,  in  the  history  of  his  dealings, 
in  the  teachings  of  his  word,  and  in  his  own  infinite  love- 
liness of  perfection  and  character, — so  far  as  they  are 
surveyed  and  ascertained  by  our  understandings, — give  a 
free  scope  to  our  meditations.  Here,  in  this  field  of  truth, 
the  imagination,  in  picturing  to  itself,  in  the  full  and 
glowing  features  and  coloring  of  life,  the  limits  and  out- 
lines of  truth,  can  feed  itself  with  pictures  of  loveliness 
ever  new  and  varying,  yet  ever  true  and  ever  awakening 


264  The  Purchase  of  the  Truth. 


the  affections  of  the  heart  to  purity  and  love.  It  is  thus 
that,  with  the  truths  of  nature  and  God  for  our  guide,  our 
thoughts  may  ever  rove  through  fields  of  beauty  and 
loveliness  with  fresh  and  immortal  joy.  The  truth  also 
settles  the  aims  and  purposes  of  our  wills  on  a  firm  and 
satisfactory  foundation.  For  the  estimates  of  wisdom,  in 
propounding  the  end  to  be  pursued  in  this  life  and  the 
particular  means  to  be  adopted  in  pursuing  that  end,  are 
founded  surely  on  the  truth.  The  truth  ascertained  and 
clearly  seen,  shows  us  the  ends  which  God  propounds  to 
himself  in  his  works  and  to  his  intelligent  creatures  in  his 
kingdom,  and  the  rules  and  methods  by  which  that  end  is 
secured  :  and  when  our  estimates  conform  to  his, — when 
our  purposes  and  plans,  as  to  the  end  and  means  of  our 
pursuit,  are  seen  by  the  truth  to  conform  to  his,  those  pur- 
poses and  plans  are  strong  and  satisfactory  to  our  own 
minds.  They  are  seen  to  be  founded  on  the  everlasting 
wisdom  and  strength  of  God  ;  approved  of  him  ;  and 
consequently  immovably  satisfying  to  ourselves,  and  mat- 
ters of  our  own  approbation  at  the  time  and  ever  after, 
whatever  the  particular  issues. 

Thus  the  truth  set  before  -us  in  the  field  of  nature  and 
the  word  of  revelation,  the  truth  to  be  acquired  as  our 
possession,  is  a  treasure  of  immense  joy  and  satisfaction 
to  our  natures. 

'Tis  a  broad  land  of  wealth  unknown, 

Where  springs  of  life  arise  ; 
Seeds  of  immortal  bliss  are  sown, 

And  hidden  glory  lies. 

But  truth  not  only  ministers  thus  to  our  natures  from 
its  immortal  fountain,  it  accompanies  us  into  our  relations 
to  the  society  of  our  fellow-men,  and  fits  us  to  fill  our 
stations  to  the  honor  of  God  and  the  benefit  of  our  race. 
The  value  of  a  mind  well  informed  and  settled  in  the 
truth,  and  acting  as  the  minister  of  God  for  the  welfare  of 
others,  is  seen  in  many  a  bright  example  on  the  page  of 
history,  in  the  effects  that  have  been  left  on  the  living 
age,  or  that  have  passed  over  to  succeeding  generations. 


The  Purchase  of  the  Truth.  265 


Through  the  truth  have  they  gained  their  victories  for 
God  and  the  race.  Into  whatever  station  you  enter  in 
society,  at  that  post,  no  qualification  is  so  valuable  as  a 
mind  and  heart  well  informed  and  grounded  in  the  truth, 
and  able  to  employ  its  treasures  wisely  to  advance  the 
ends  of  your  station.  For  all  the  great  interests  of  hu- 
manity, in  every  department,  depend  on  conformity  to  the 
laws  which  a  God  of  truth  has  stamped  on  the  nature  of 
things  in  his  kingdom,  and  by  which  he  sets  forth  to  his 
intelligent  creatures  the  ends  and  means,  on  which  their 
happiness  necessarily  depends.  Who  then  is  fit  to  guide 
men  in  conformity  to  the  laws  of  nature  and  God,  and 
thus  to  further  their  welfare,  but  he  who  has  acquired 
the  truth  ;  who  sees  distinctly,  on  topics  of  public  interest, 
what  are  the  right  and  true  conclusions,  and  rests  their 
certainty  on  clear  and  indisputable  evidences  and  proofs? 
He  is  prepared  to  dispel  the  mists  of  ignorance  before 
him  ;  to  silence  the  pleas  of  error,  and  bear  along  with 
him,  sooner  or  later,  in  his  own  generation,  or  in  genera- 
tions to  follow,  the  convictions  of  mankind. 

In  society  at  large,  then,  would  you  serve  God  and 
your  generation  ?  What  speaker,  what  writer,  can  so 
command  attention,  so  fix  the  views  of  his  hearers  or 
readers  to  clear  and  definite  apprehensions,  so  settle  and 
establish  their  minds  in  his  own  positions  and  judgments, 
as  he  who  thinks  clearly,  definitely  and  truly  himself,  and 
has  at  his  command  all  the  materials  for  illustration  and 
proof,  by  which  to  settle  others  in  the  truth  ?  To  say 
nothing  of  the  earnest  pleading  and  sincerity,  which  un- 
derly  all  outward  means  and  appliances  used,  in  the 
heart  devoted  to  God  and  to  the  benefit  of  the  race,  who 
else  can  so  fitly  manage  the  outward  means  and  applian- 
ces themselves?  In  the  Church,  would  you  serve  God  and 
your  generation?  If  you  minister  at  the  altars  of  reli- 
gion, if  you  serve  at  the  desk  of  religious  instruction, 
what  more  necessary  or  more  valuable  qualification  than 
to  have  acquired  the  truth  of  God  for  a  personal  posses- 
sion ?  To  have  the  understanding,  the  imagination,  and 
the  heart,  largely  and  deeply  conversant  in  the  things  of 

35 


266  The  Purchase  of  the  TrntJi. 


God ;  and  to  be  able,  out  of  such  treasures,  to  feed  the 
hungry  with  understanding,  to  guide  the  weak  and  the 
straying  into  the  right  way,  to  convince  and  persuade 
unbelievers,  and  make  known  to  all  the  wonderful  glory 
of  God,  and  the  only  true  way  to  honor  and  glory  in  his 
immortal  kingdom.  And  in  the  State,  if  called  in  the 
halls  of  legislation  to  speak  for  the  interests  of  a  people, 
what  power  has  that  orator  to  guide  and  sway  to  meas- 
ures of  utility,  who,  well  furnished  on  questions  of  public 
policy  and  duty,  has  at  command  the  definite  conclusions 
and  the  unfailing  evidences  and  proofs  of  truth  ?  He 
speaks  with  definiteness  to  the  point  in  debate :  and,  with 
the  clearness  and  cogency  of  unanswerable  reason,  sets 
forth  his  conclusions  in  the  light  of  certainty  :  and  they, 
who  consult  impartially  the  public  interest,  are  convinced, 
and,  by  their  concurrence,  the  affairs  of  the  State  are  man- 
aged with  safety  and  success. 

Or,  if  he  must  contend  with  the  perverse  leaders  of  an 
ignorant  faction,  and  fails  of  immediate  success,  he  suc- 
ceeds to  plant  the  seeds  of  truth  that  shall  bear  a  later 
harvest.  Before  his  manly  front  and  convincing  appeals, 
the  leaders  of  faction  quail  and  cower.  He  steps  between 
them  and  the  misguided  multitude,  to  show  up  the  soph- 
istry of  the  wandering  harangues  they  substitute  in  the 
place  of  argument,  and  pin  them  down  to  their  proper 
place  of  presumptuous  ignorance  or  wilful  falsehood. 
Their  want  of  integrity  becomes  manifest ;  their  substi- 
tution of  their  own  personal  aggrandizement  in  place  of 
the  public  interests,  stands  reproved ;  and  they  and  their 
measures,  if  upheld  for  the  moment,  receive  the  verdict 
of  public  condemnation  at  a  later  period.  The  advocate 
of  truth  thus  triumphantly  succeeds  to  impart  the  bles- 
sings of  his  wisdom  to  his  own  or  a  succeeding  generation  : 
and  the  triumph  is  forever  recorded  on  the  page  of  im- 
partial history.  Truth  thus  imparts  to  its  possessor  the 
power  to  labor  most  fitly  and  successfully  for  the  wel- 
fare of  his  race:  to  set  before  them,  more  convincingly 
and  persuasively,  the  true  means  and  sources  of  their 
welfare. 


The  Purchase  of  the  Truth.  267 


But  a  still  higher  value  belongs  to  the  possession  of 
truth,  as  the  means  of  preparing  us  for  an  immortal  life 
with  God  in  his  kingdom.  In  conforming  our  judgments 
to  truth,  we  shall  come  to  the  teachings  of  nature  and  the 
teachings  of  revelation,  that  our  minds  may  be  filled  with 
the  knowledge  of  God.  For  we  shall  not  have  the  truth 
with  us  practically,  we  shall  not  hold  it  in  its  highest  and 
most  earnest  teachings,  unless  we  view  God  as  the  sum 
and  source  of  all  spiritual  excellence  and  happiness.  He, 
the  infinite  Father  of  spirits,  has  created  our  spirits  after 
the  image  of  his  own  immortality :  and  he  sets  forth  to 
us,  in  his  works  and  word,  the  pattern  of  his  own  wisdom 
and  goodness  and  righteousness  and  mercy,  that  we  may 
conform  our  minds  and  feelings  and  aims  to  his,  and  fill 
our  natures  from  his  infinite  fullness.  Thus,  at  the  fount 
of  truth,  we  drink  in  the  mind  and  spirit  of  God  into  our 
natures,  and  hold  a  fellowship  with  his  Spirit,  that  gives 
witness  to  us  of  an  immortal  life  with  him  in  his  kingdom. 
For  Jesus,  in  coming  to  us  as  the  Revealer  of  God  and  the 
Pattern  of  God,  intending  not  merely  to  free  us  from  the 
condemnation  of  the  law,  but  to  restore  us  to  its  great 
precept,  hath  said :  "  This  is  eternal  life  that  they  might 
know  thee,  the  Only  True  God,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom 
thou  hast  sent."  The  very  element  and  source  of  eternal 
joy  to  our  souls  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  is  taken  in  the 
truth,  in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  Jesus  Christ,  in  fel- 
lowship with  them  in  mind,  in  spirit,  in  works :  so  that, 
as  he  lives  forever  in  his  own  infinite  fullness  of  knowl- 
edge, excellence  and  joy,  they  shall  live  also  forever  in 
the  communion,  which  they  begin  here  in  his  love  through 
the  truth,  with  him  in  his  eternal  kingdom. 

The  truth  it  is,  that  thus  leads,  us  to  God  and  Christ  in 
reconciliation  and  love  in  this  life,  and  prepares  us  for  an 
immortal  life  of  increasing  knowledge,  love  and  joy  with 
him  in  his  kingdom. 

I  have  thus  enumerated  the  positive  benefits,  to  be  deri- 
ved from  procuring  to  ourselves  the  possession  of  the 
truth,  as  a  treasure  of  great  joy  to  our  natures,  as  a  means 


268  The  Purchase  of  the  Truth. 


by  which  we  may  benefit  our  race,  and  as  our  guide  to 
an  immortal  life  in  heaven. 

Should  we  not  pay  then  whatever  price  is  necessary  to 
the  possession  of  so  valuable  a  treasure  ?  The  treasure  is 
far  more  valuable  to  us,  than  the  cost  can  be  at  any  rate. 
For  the  cost  of  mental  toil,  denial  of  sensual  passions, 
moral  courage  and  humility  ,>  that  may  be  exacted  is,  at 
the  worst,  but  a  partial  sacrifice  and  a  temporary  one, 
which  in  itself  is  a  salutary  discipline  for  our  natures, 
while  the  truth  procured  by  it,  ministers  positively  and 
largely  to  the  welfare  of  our  whole  being,  in  all  its  rela- 
tions,— and  that  to  eternity. 

Should  we  not  then  make  the  purchase  ?  If  we  withhold 
the  price  and  refuse,  we  necessarily  forfeit  all  these  high 
and  everlasting  advantages ;  and,  in  mental  indolence,  in 
the  indulgence  of  sensuality,  in  cowering  to  the  opinions 
of  the  vile,  in  the  vain  boasts  of  pride,  we  shall  become 
the  dupes  of  ignorance,  error,  and  sin,  and  rove  away 
from  the  center  of  all  truth  and  loveliness,  like  wandering 
stars,  into  the  blackness  of  darkness  forever. 

The  precept  which  I  have  unfolded  applies,  I  have  said, 
with  special  force  to  the  life  of  the  scholar. 

The  scholar  has  disciplined  his  mind  to  the  processes  of 
study.  Shall  he  then  suffer  questions  of  deep  and  univer- 
sal interest,  on  which  he  must  act,  to  lie  uninvestigated  ? 
Shall  he  not  rather  apply  himself  to  the  task  of  settling 
his  mind  clearly  and  firmly  on  the  foundations  of  truth  ? 

He  can  appreciate,  to  some  extent  from  his  own  expe- 
rience, the  joys  and  advantages  of  acquiring  truth.  Shall 
he  not  follow  on,  then,  to  know  the  Lord  and  his  works, 
and  to  increase,  at  the  fount  of  truth,  the  treasures  of  his 
knowledge  ? 

And,  because  of  his  advantages  and  opportunities,  he  is 
expected  to  know  the  truth.  Shall  he  be  content  then  to 
utter  among  his  fellow-men  the  fallacies  that  deceive,  and 
thus  expose  them  to  injury,  and  himself  to  detection  and 
contempt?  Shall  he  not  rather  strive  to  maintain  the 
reputation  of  an  earnest  and  thorough  champion  of  the 
true,  the  right  and  the  good  ? 


The  Purchase  of  the  Truth.  269 


My  Young  Friends,  I  have  set  before  you  a  short  pre- 
cept of  wisdom.  Though  short,  it  is  comprehensive,  and 
it  guides  you  to  your  highest  welfare.  You  can  easily 
retain  it  in  memory.  Will  you  adopt  it  as  a  maxim  of 
life?  Will  you  put  it  into  practice?  You  may  find  it 
difficult  to  do  it  always.  But  do  it :  and  the  gain  will  be 
yours.  Do  it:  and  its  deep  wisdom  will  appear  to  you  in 
the  happy  experience  of  your  souls,  on  the  path  of  this 
life,  and  in  eternity. 

I  may  not  have  another  occasion  of  speaking  to  you. 
I  hope  the  many  occasions,  on  which  I  have  spoken  al- 
ready, may  not  prove  in  vain :  nor  the  many  lessons  of 
instruction  you  have  here  received  from  your  teachers. 
A  review  of  the  few  years  of  your  residence  here,  will 
serve  to  impress  on  your  hearts  lessons  of  thankfulness 
for  the  care  and  kindness  of  an  overruling  providence, 
and  lessons  of  wisdom  for  your  guidance  on  the  ways  of 
future  life.  You  have  lived  to  reach  this  goal.  One, 
only,  of  your  happy  number  has  fallen  from  your  ranks. 
Burnap  is  not  with  you  to-day.  He  has  fallen  asleep  in 
life's  early  morning.  And  over  his  grave  you  drop  the 
tear  of  sorrow  with  the  family,  whose  hearts  are  so  sad- 
dened this  day  with  their  disappointment  and  loss.  You 
have  reached  the  goal :  and  again  you  are  to  start  forth 
on  a  new  career,  to  try,  apart,  the  yet  untrod  paths  of  life. 
Have  you  not  seen  on  your  way  already,  that  to  let  truth 
enter  your  understanding  and  heart,  and  bear  the  sway, 
is  far  better  for  your  present  peace  and  usefulness  and 
your  eternal  prospects,  than  to  wallow  in  the  mire  of  sen- 
sual and  earthly  passions,  and  to  cringe  and  bow,  as  slaves, 
for  the  flattery  and  favor  of  those  around  you  who  are 
addicted  to  like  passions?  Certainly  you  have,  to  your 
joy,  if  you  have  been  faithful  ;  to  your  sorrow,  if  unfaith- 
ful. Go  forth  then,  resolved,  all  as  one,  cost  it  what 
partial  and  temporary  discipline  it  may,  to  be  men  of 
understanding  and  men  of  truth,  for  the  honor  of  God 
and  the  benefit  of  your  race,  on  this  transitory  stage  of 
your  existence.  Then,  happy  will  it  be  for  you,  when 
your  days  upon  earth  are  ended,  to  have  sent  before  you 


270  The  Purchase  of  the  Truth. 


into  heaven,  and  to  leave  behind  you  among-  men,  joyful 
testimonies  to  your  advocacy  for  God  and  righteousness ; 
and,  as  you  enter  into  the  presence  of  your  Judge,  to 
hear  from  his  lips  the  benediction  of  immortal  joy  :  "  Ser- 
vants of  God,  well  done." 

Beloved  pupils  and  friends,  we  bid  you  farewell. 


NO  REFUGE  BUT  CHRIST. 


ISAIAH  XXVIII:  17. 

THE   HAIL    SHALL    SWEEP  AWAY  THE    REFUGE    OF   LIES,  AND  THE  WATERS  SHALL 
OVERFLOW    THE   HIDING   PLACE. 

THE  prophet  made  this  declaration  to  the  rulers  of 
Jerusalem,  who  sustained,  as  he  declares,  the  character 
of  "  scornful  men."  They,  it  seems,  who  should  have 
used  their  influence  with  the  people  for  their  holiness 
and  spiritual  welfare,  were  willing  to  stand  up  as  oppo- 
sers  of  the  progress  of  divine  truth,  and  as  stumbling- 
blocks  in  the  way  of  the  salvation  of  Israel,  by  publicly 
taking  the  station  of  scorners  of  this  prophet  of  the  Lord. 
They  were  willing  to  deride  the  threatenings,  which  he 
denounced  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  against  sinners.  The 
prophet  declares,  that  they  sustained  their  scornful  spirit, 
by  the  vain  imagination  that  they  were  secure  from  the 
threatened  evils  of  death  and  hell.  They  had,  in  their 
own  opinion,  devised  a  way  which  would  protect  them 
from  the  evil :  but  the  prophet  assured  them,  that  it  was 
a  refuge  of  lies ;  that  they  were  hiding  themselves  under 
falsehood.  He  then  announces  to  them,  distinctly,  the 
plan  on  which  Jehovah  would  deal  with  the  inhabitants  of 
Jerusalem :  that  he  would  place  in  Jerusalem  a  corner- 
stone and  foundation,  tried  and  precious,  on  which  those 
who  in  faith  rested  themselves  for  security  would  find 
protection  ;  where  they  should  not  make  haste,  nor  flee  in 
the  day  of  coming  wrath :  but  that  he  would  bring  judg- 
ment, with  the  exact  and  even  measure  of  the  line  and 
plummet,  upon  all  others  ;  and  that  the  overflowing  waters 
of  judgment,  like  the  deluge  which  had  once  desolated 
the  world,  would  flow  in  on  their  hiding  place  and  drown 
them  in  destruction.  They  who  did  not  repair  in  faith  to 


272  No  Refuge  but  Christ. 


the  Redeemer  in  Zion,  he  thus  assured  them,  could  resort 
to  no  refuge  which  would  protect  them  from  the  holy 
vengeance  of  God. 

This  declaration  in  like  manner  assures  you,  my  friends, 
that  there  is  no  refuge,  except  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  which 
will  protect  you  from  the  eternal  wrath  of  God. 

In  illustrating  this  subject,  I  will  attempt  to  show, 

I.  That  they,  who  are  careless  about  their  salvation,  are 
sustaining  themselves  by  some  refuge. 

II.  That  every  refuge  to  which  they  betake  themselves, 
short  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  leaves  them  exposed  to 
the  wrath  of  God.     And, 

III.  That    unless    they    speedily    forsake    every    such 
refuge,  they  must  be  overwhelmed  and  destroyed  by  the 
judgment  of  God. 

In  presenting  this  subject  to  you,  my  fellow-sinners,  my 
prayer  to  God  is,  that  I  may  be  enabled,  in  all  fidelity  and 
with  sincere  affection,  to  point  out  to  you  your  imminent 
danger,  and  induce  you  to  flee  immediately  to  Jesus 
Christ  for  refuge,  and  to  rest  your  souls  in  security  on 
that  Rock  of  Salvation,  which  God  has  placed  in  Zion  for 
your  deliverance  in  the  coming  day  of  judgment. 

I  remark,  then, 

I.  In  the  first  place,  that  all  of  you,  who  are  at  ease 
respecting  your  salvation,  are  quieting  your  fears  by 
resorting  to  some  refuge. 

Fear  is  always  excited  in  the  mind  of  man,  when  he  sees 
some  great  evil  impending  over  him,  and  knows  that  he 
can  resort  to  nothing  which  will  afford  him  protection. 
Only  strip  him  of  every  shelter,  close  upon  him  every 
way  of  escape,  take  away  from  him  all  power  to  remove 
the  coming  evil,  and  you  pour  at  once  into  his  heart  the 
agitations  of  terror — a  terror  measured  only  by  the 
extent  of  the  evil  that  he  is  to  suffer.  The  shipwrecked 
mariner,  when  on  mid-ocean  he  sees  the  fragile  ship  that 
bears  him,  foundering,  and  soon  to  engulph  him  in  the 
abyss  of  waters,  if  he  discover  no  means  of  escape  at 
hand  or  abroad,  feels  at  once  the  terrors  of  hastening 
death.  And  if  at  that  hour  his  soul  is  not  buoyed  up 


No  Refuge  but  Christ.  273 


with  some  hope,  he  is  open  at  once  to  the  terrors  of  hell. 
And  as  he  watches  the  rapid  approach  of  the  evil,  the 
few  moments  that  intervene,  in  which  he  can  drink  in  the 
light  and  breathe  the  air  of  day,  afford  no  relief  to  his 
heart.  He  is  agonized  with  a  despair  that  is  to  know  no 
end,  and,  in  the  midst  of  his  terror,  he  sinks  in  the  abyss 
of  the  grave  and  hell. 

Now  it  is  on  this  general  principle  of  our  nature,  that 
I  argue,  that  every  one  must  be  filled  with  deep  fear 
respecting  the  safety  of  his  soul,  or  else  must  be  quieting 
his  fear  by  trusting  in  some  refuge  for  the  protection  of 
his  soul.  And  in  order  to  show  this,  I  will  appeal  only  to 
one  thing  of  which  you  are  conscious.  I  will  not  ask, 
whether  you  believe  in  the  threatenings  of  God,  which 
glare  upon  you  in  such  unequivocal  and  pointed  declara- 
tions throughout  his  word  ;  I  will  not  ask,  whether  you 
believe  in  those  affecting  descriptions  he  has  given  you 
of  the  world  of  future  punishment ;  I  will  not  attempt  to 
show  you — independently  of  any  declarations  of  the  fact 
in  the  Bible — that  your  soul  is  in  danger,  and  that  your 
fears  must  be  excited,  unless  you  resort  to  some  protect- 
ing refuge. 

I  appeal  only  to  this  one  thing,  of  which  you  are  con- 
scious at  this  moment :  viz.  that  your  heart  is  estranged 
from  God.  This  glorious  Being,  who  made  you,  and  on 
whose  favor  the  soul  is  dependent  for  its  happiness,  is  not 
the  object  of  your  affections.  You  are  not  seeking  your 
joy  from  his  favor  and  service.  You  are  not  sympathiz- 
ing in  his  holiness  and  benevolence  and  justice  with  all 
the  heart,  and,  in  simplicity  and  love,  surrendering  your- 
self to  his  benevolent  government.  Your  heart  is  fixed 
on  other  objects,  which  wholly  separate  you  from  all 
active  and  blissful  communion  in  his  love.  You  are  thus, 
in  the  feelings  and  purposes  of  your  heart,  at  actual  vari- 
ance with  the  design  and  object  of  his  most  holy  and 
benevolent  government,  and  are  consequently  trampling 
on  his  laws  and  authority. 

Now  this  separation  of  the  heart  from  him — this  total 
insubjection  to  his  benevolent  government,  is  a  fact  which 

36 


274  No  Refuge  but   Christ. 


lies  fully  within  the  limits  of  your  own  consciousness. 
The  thing  is  definite  and  obvious.  It  is  no  other  than 
your  own  full  and  stubborn  purpose  of  heart,  to  cleave  to 
the  inferior  joys  which  you  strive  to  find  in  your  own 
personal  and  worldly  and  independent  gratification.  You 
need  no  declaration  of  the  word  of  God  to  assure  you  of 
a  fact  like  this,  which  comes  so  fully  within  the  cogni- 
zance of  your  own  consciousness.  Whether  you  admit 
revelation,  or  pretend  to  deny  it,  this  most  alarming  fact 
stares  you  fully  in  the  face. 

And  this  fact  portends  such  danger  to  your  soul,  as 
must  excite  most  serious  apprehensions  for  your  safety, 
unless  you  are  resorting  to  some  shelter,  which  you  think 
will  protect  you  from  the  evil.  For  it  is  obvious,  that, 
with  a  heart  thus  continuing  in  alienation  from  God,  and 
at  variance  with  his  holy  law  and  righteous  authority, 
there  can  be  no  peace  to  your  soul  in  a  coming  eternity. 
For  you  can  never  escape  from  the  vigilant  eye,  the 
almighty  power,  and  the  perfect  government  of  this  holy 
Being.  And  it  is  certain,  that  if  you  go  forward  forever 
with  a  heart  thus  at  variance  with  him  and  his  holy 
authority,  you  must  for  that  reason  be  forever  separated 
from  all  experience  of  his  love,  and  lie  under  the  full 
weight  of  his  displeasure.  And  what  misery  must  forever 
agonize  that  soul,  that  is  to  bear,  through  a  long  and  hope- 
less eternity,  the  displeasure  of  a  righteous  and  holy  God, 
and  an  utter  exclusion  from  all  participation  in  the  joys  of 
his  heavenly  presence ! 

Now  if  you  look  only  at  your  present  separation  from 
God  and  variance  at  heart  with  his  government,  you  can 
see  nothing  else  to  flow  from  it  but  all  this  overwhelming 
anguish  and  ruin.  If  you  hope  to  escape,  your  hope 
must  come  from  some  other  quarter.  It  must  come  from 
something  else,  which  serves  you  as  a  refuge  from  the  im- 
pending evil.  For,  as  to  this  variance  with  God  in  itself, 
it  portends  only  everlasting  ruin.  You  have  persisted  in 
it  long.  You  have  persisted  in  it  madly,  against  the  plea 
of  your  highest  interests.  You  have  persisted  in  it  stub- 
bornly, against  much  long-suffering  and  goodness  on  the 


No  Refuge  but  Christ.  275 


part  of  your  holy  and  justly  offended  Creator,  while  wait- 
ing on  you  for  your  repentance.  You  are  persisting  in  it 
now.  You  are  absolutely  unwilling  to  give  it  up,  and 
submit  yourselves  to  God.  And  what  can  you  expect 
from  this  astonishing  contest  with  a  righteous  and  holy 
Creator,  but  to  fall  under  the  everlasting  sufferings  of  his 
displeasure  ?  Nothing  can  meet  you  on  this  path  but  the 
everlasting  ruin  of  your  own  soul — its  eternal  separation 
from  all  the  joys  which  flow  from  holiness  and  the  favor 
of  God — its  eternal  endurance  of  all  the  anguish,  which 
must  come  from  degradation  and  sin  and  guilt,  from  an 
upbraiding  conscience,  a  malicious  heart,  and  the  over- 
flowing scourge  of  God's  wrath.  You  cannot  be  quiet, 
then,  in  your  present  separation  from  God,  unless  you 
resort  to  something,  as  the  refuge  under  which  you  would 
shelter  yourself,  and  by  means  of  which  you  hope  to 
escape  the  impending  evil.  I  do  not  say,  that  your  soul  is 
disquieted  within  you.  I  do  not  say,  that  you  are  alarmed 
with  the  apprehensions  of  the  evil  in  question.  But  what 
I  now  affirm  is,  that  if  such  are  not  your  feelings,  you  are 
quieting  yourself  with  the  hope  of  some  escape.  What 
I  have  been  endeavoring  to  show,  and  what  I  think  I  have 
succeeded  in  showing,  is  that,  if  you  are  quiet,  it  is  not 
because  you  see  no  danger  whatever  surrounding  your 
soul  and  threatening  its  destruction,  but  because  you 
cling  to  something  which  you  hope  will  protect  you  from 
the  danger. 

The  inquiry  therefore  becomes  as  interesting  to  you  as 
eternity,  whether  the  refuge,  to  which  you  resort  for 
quelling  your  fears,  is  one  which  will  serve  for  your  deep 
necessities,  and  protect  you  from  the  danger  that  threat- 
ens your  everlasting  interests  ?  To  assist  you  to  discover 
the  truth  on  a  point  so  vital  to  your  well  being,  and  to 
rescue  you  from  every  delusion  of  sin,  I  remark, 

II.  In  the  second  place,  that  every  refuge  to  which  you 
betake  yourselves  short  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  leaves 
your  souls  still  exposed  to  all  this  danger. 

That  refuge  alone  is  valuable,  which  affords  a  sure  pro- 
tection from  the  coming  evil.  When  this  world  was 


276  No  Refuge  but  Christ. 


threatened  with  a  deluge,  every  one  to  whom  Noah 
preached  had  the  opportunity,  doubtless,  in  fear  of  the, 
coming  evil,  to  build  an  ark  for  himself  and  household, 
which  should  ride  over  the  face  of  the  waters.  At  least, 
every  one  saw  that  no  other  species  of  refuge  offered  any 
protection  against  such  an  evil  as  a  universal  flood.  And 
doubtless,  whenever  Noah  uttered  the  threatening  of 
God,  his  hearers  resorted  to  some  refuge  to  quell  their 
fears.  The  first  refuge,  and  perhaps  the  only  one  in  their 
case,  was  unbelief.  They  did  not  believe  that  God  would 
execute  such  a  threatening.  What  had  the  world  done  to 
deserve  it?  Or,  if  they  had  offended  their  Maker,  wrhere 
should  God  find  water  sufficient  for  the  submersion  of  a 
world  ?  But,  when  the  flood  came,  they  were  driven  from 
this  refuge  ;  unless  their  unbelief  followed  them  still,  as 
they  repaired  for  protection  from  height  to  height,  until 
the  last  refuge  was  failing,  and  they  could  disbelieve  no 
longer,  as  they  were  sinking  under  the  judgments  of 
heaven. 

And  so,  in  your  present  condition,  it  is  just  as  easy  to 
perceive  that  no  refuge,  on  which  you  can  depend,  will 
afford  any  protection  to  your  souls  in  a  coming  eternity, 
short  of  Jesus  Christ.  Christ  is  a  sure  refuge,  for  this 
plain  reason,  that  in  him  God,  your  offended  Maker, 
shows  himself  to  you  as  willing  to  undertake  with  his  own 
arm  the  work  of  your  salvation.  He  has  set  apart  his 
Beloved  Son  to  the  very  office  of  bringing  salvation  down 
to  the  acceptance  of  just  such  beings  and  sinners  as  you. 
He  has,  in  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  Christ,  voluntarily 
done  all  that  was  necessary  for  him,  as  a  righteous  king, 
to  offer  you,  on  your  repentance  and  return  to  obedience, 
the  free  remission  of  your  sins  against  his  laws,  and  an 
admission  to  the  joys  of  his  favor.  When  the  Lord  Jesus, 
therefore,  stands  before  you  offering  salvation, — offering, 
with  the  strongest  proofs  of  sincerity,  to  take  you  at  once 
and  willingly  under  his  protection  and  care,  if  you  will 
only  accept  of  him  as  your  Saviour,  and  fully  surrender 
yourself  up  to  his  care  and  government,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  on  your  minds  that  this  refuge  is  sure.  The  refuge 


No  Refuge  but  Christ.  277 


is  adapted  to  the  very  nature  of  the  evil.  The  sinner, 
who,  moved  by  a  sense  of  the  evil  of  his  estrangement 
from  God  and  exposure  to  his  curse,  will  come  and  make 
full  confession  of  his  sin,  and  with  a  broken  heart  will 
trust  all  his  salvation  in  the  hands  of  Christ,  and  look  to 
him  alone  for  it,  and  enlist  his  heart  in  humble  and  thank- 
ful devotedness  to  his  will  and  glory,  is  brought  to  a 
reconciliation  and  communion  with  his  God,  which  shall 
go  on  as  the  days  of  eternity,  and  which  no  act  of  the 
government  of  God — not  the  solemn  acts  of  final  judg- 
ment and  retribution — will  ever  dissolve  or  shake.  For 
it  is  an  everlasting  reconciliation,  and  communion  in  love. 

But  every  other  source  of  deliverance,  on  which  you 
can  fasten  a  hope,  is  unavailing.  In  the  first  place,  for 
this  reason  :  that  it  leaves  you  still  at  variance  with  your 
Maker's  government,  and  under  his  righteous  curse — the 
very  evils  from  which  you  need  deliverance,  and  which 
threaten  the  eternal  ruin  of  the  soul.  You  may  think  of 
resorting  to  infidelity  as  your  shelter.  But,  in  that  hiding 
place,  you  will  not  change  your  character  or  your  rela- 
tion to  the  infinite  God.  The  revelation  which  you 
attempt  to  disbelieve,  has  not  made  you  a  sinner  nor  an 
enemy  of  God :  it  finds  you  such  ;  and  on  the  basis  of 
that  fact,  which  lies  within  your  consciousness,  and  must 
follow  you,  go  whither  you  will  in  the  universe,  it  has 
merely  come  on  an  errand  of  mercy,  to  set  before  you  a 
Saviour  for  your  deliverance.  God  has  acted  as  your 
highest  benefactor  in  bringing  this  volume  of  his  grace  to 
your  hands,  and  he  only  asks  you  to  believe  and  trust 
with  all  your  heart  in  that  fullness  of  grace,  that  offers  to 
unite  you  to  his  love  and  holy  kingdom.  And  to  dis- 
believe this,  to  draw  back  from  accepting  a  proposal  like 
this,  is  surely  to  leave  your  hearts  still  in  all  their  dis- 
tance from  God,  and  your  souls  in  all  their  exposure  to 
his  righteous  indignation. 

Do  you  think  to  find  a  shelter  in  the  belief  of  universal 
salvation  ?  But  what  if  you  try,  and  try  hard,  to  per- 
suade yourself  of  the  safety  of  such  a  hope?  Will  that 
belief  bring"  your  hearts  off  from  your  idols  and  sins  ? 


278  No  Refuge  but  Christ. 


Will  that  belief  bring  you  to  repentance  and  hearty 
reconciliation  and  communion  with  God  ?  Does  not  the 
searching  eye  of  God,  as  it  looks  into  your  hiding  place, 
see  a  heart  there  that  is  as  insubmissive  and  rebellious 
as  ever?  and  must  not  his  holy  indignation  still  pursue 
you,  so  long  as  you  cling  to  a  hope  that  alters  not  your 
character,  but  keeps  you  at  distance  from  the  surrender 
of  yourselves  to  his  government  ? 

Or  will  you  depend  on  mere  external  morality  as  your 
shelter  ?  Will  you  hope  for  protection  at  the  tribunal  of 
God,  because  you  conform  to  your  own  rules  of  right- 
eousness ?  Because  you  act  an  honorable  part  before 
your  fellow-men,  and  abstain  from  acts  of  direct  injustice 
and  cruelty,  and  do  many  things  for  the  temporal  welfare 
of  your  fellow-creatures?  But  while  you  rely  on  this, 
your  hearts  are  still  far  from  God,  and  not  having  entered 
into  reconciliation  with  him,  and  become  obedient  to  his 
holy  dominion  through  Christ  the  Mediator,  you  are  still 
the  objects  of  his  displeasure — the  moral  variance  of  your 
heart  from  the  law  of  God  still  continues.  And  if  you 
have  no  other  hope  for  eternity,  you  go  forward  in  your 
rebellion  and  sin  against  God,  and  can  expect  nothing  but 
the  fires  of  his  vengeance. 

Or  will  you  trust  in  the  intention  you  cherish,  of  com- 
ing to  Christ  for  salvation  at  a  future  day  ?  But,  in  this 
shelter,  you  still  remain  as  you  were.  By  this  purpose 
of  delay,  no  essential  change  is  effected  in  your  feelings 
towards  God,  or  in  his  feelings  towards  you.  There  is  no 
reconciliation,  but  rather  a  receding  from  it,  in  your 
greater  insensibility  and  his  greater  displeasure.  Your 
souls  are  still  as  open  as  ever  to  his  consuming  judg- 
ments. 

Or  will  you  trust  to  your  convictions?  Do  you  say 
that  you  entertain  a  clear  and  rational  conviction,  that 
God  is  good  and  just,  and  that  you  are  a  sinner  ;  and  do 
you  think  that  a  mere  conviction  of  the  truth,  however 
deep  and  strong  it  may  be,  will  save  you  ?  But  if  you 
rest  in  these  convictions,  without  betaking  yourself,  as 
they  urge  you,  in  self-surrender  to  Jesus  Christ  for  sal- 


No  Refuge  but  Christ.  279 


vation,  what  change  have  they  effected  in  your  character 
or  your  relation  to  God?  You  are  still  dependent  on 
yourself,  and  not  on  Christ,  for  salvation.  And  will  the 
mere  convictions  of  a  sinner,  who  has  fallen  under  his 
Maker's  curse,  and  who  still  withholds  his  heart  from 
surrender  to  the  Saviour,  avail  to  reconcile  him  to  God  ? 

Just  so,  if  you  will  open  your  eyes  to  the  nature  of 
every  refuge  of  which  you  have  ever  thought,  or  which 
you  can  devise,  short  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  died  for  your 
sins  and  offers  to  be  your  Saviour,  you  will  see,  that  they 
leave  you  just  where  you  were,  without  your  approxi- 
mating one  step  towards  a  happy  and  cordial  submission 
to  God  as  your  only  Lord  and  Saviour,  or  towards 
removing  from  your  souls  the  righteous  curse  of  his  law. 

In  the  next  place,  it  is  true  of  every  refuge  but  Christ, 
that  if  you  depend  on  it  for  safety,  you  not  only  retain 
essentially  the  same  character  and  relation  to  God  as 
before,  but  you  also  bind  your  souls  to  the  same  spiritual 
state  more  firmly  than  ever.  The  very  act  of  depending 
on  anything  for  your  eternal  happiness,  binds  you  firmly 
to  the  object  of  your  dependence  ;  and,  if  that  object  be 
other  than  Christ  Jesus,  it  leads  you  along  thoughtlessly 
and  carelessly  in  all  your  exposure,  until  the  very  evil 
comes  upon  you.  For  he  who  takes  a  shelter,  goes  into 
it  for  the  very  purpose  of  abiding  the  storm.  And  so 
long  as  he  can  think  it  secure,  he  will  remain  in  it  and 
await  the  consequences.  If  therefore  every  other  refuge, 
to  which  you  can  trust  for  the  salvation  of  your  souls,  but 
Christ,  does  not  reconcile  you  and  God  at  the  time  you 
enter  it,  it  never  will :  it  will  but  keep  you  from  a  recon- 
ciliation, just  as  long  and  as  firmly  as  you  depend  on  it  for 
safety.  All  possible  refuges  other  than  Christ,  therefore, 
bind  you  to  your  sins.  They  encourage  you  to  go  for- 
ward to  the  eternal  world,  in  a  thoughtless  neglect  of  all 
your  spiritual  duties  towards  God,  and  all  the  conse- 
quences of  a  continued  rebellion.  And  what  can  be 
expected  from  such  refuges,  that  lead  you  to  an  utter 
carelessness  about  all  your  contrariety  to  the  holy 
government  of  God  ?  A  rebel,  made  willing  to  adhere  to 


280  No  Refuge  but  Christ. 


his  rebellion  through  all  the  goodness  and  holiness  and 
grace,  that  are  beaming  on  him  from  the  throne  of  God  ! 
made  willing  to  adhere  to  it,  without  regard  to  the  con- 
sequences!  made  willing  to  adhere  to  it,  till  this  life  is 
closed,  and  to  adhere  to  it  through  the  anguish  of  death, 
and  to  go  with  it  into  the  presence  of  his  Maker !  Can 
anything  come  of  such  reliances  and  hopes,  but  the  agony 
of  eternal  sin  and  guilt  and  despair?  Must  they  not  leave 
you  unprotected  in  the  great  day  of  God's  judgment? 

But  still  again.  Other  refuges,  on  which  you  depend 
for  the  safety  of  your  souls,  must  bring  on  you  the  addi- 
tional guilt  of  slighting  all  the  love  of  Christ.  They  not 
only  leave  you  still  in  a  state  of  alienation  from  God  in 
your  hearts  ;  they  not  only  encourage  you  to  go  forward 
in  such  a  state  to  eternity,  with  a  careless  presumption  ; 
but  in  choosing  to  resort  to  them,  rather  than  go  in  confi- 
dence to  the  Saviour  as  your  only  hope  and  righteous- 
ness, you  bring  on  you  the  greater  guilt  of  slighting  his 
love  and  mercy.  He  is  able  to  save  you  from  your  sins, 
and  to  bring  your  souls  to  the  everlasting  enjoyment  of 
God's  favor  and  government.  He  has  given  you  the 
most  convincing  and  melting  proofs  of  his  willingness  to 
do  all  that  is  necessary  for  your  redemption  to  God.  He 
has  in  compassion  visited  this  world,  and  surrendered  up 
his  life  on  the  cross  for  you,  that  he  might  protect  the 
government  of  God  while  offering  you  salvation.  Arid 
he  is  before  you  with  his  offer,  calling  upon  you,  as  lost 
sinners,  to  depend  on  him  for  the  salvation  of  your  souls. 
He  only  asks  you  to  reject  all  other  hopes  of  salvation, 
and  with  all  your  heart  give  up  yourselves  to  his  protec- 
tion and  love.  Why  will  you  not  try  this  Friend  of 
sinners  ?  Why  will  you  not  repose  all  your  hope  and 
salvation  in  his  keeping,  and  accept  from  him  the  pardon, 
the  communion  with  God,  the  sanctifying  grace,  which  he 
offers?  Why  will  you  not  depend  on  him  for  everything 
necessary  to  your  deliverance  and  redemption,  and  joy- 
fully surrender  your  souls  to  him  wholly  and  forever? 
It  is  love  and  mercy  in  him  that  asks  you  to  do  it,  love 
and  mercy,  that  has  wept  tears  of  sorrow  and  sweat  drops 


No  Refuge  but  Christ.  281 


of  agony  for  you  already,  and  that  will  never  fail  you,  if  you 
will  rely  on  it.    Will  you,  rather  than  bring  your  hearts  to 
submit  to  such  love  and  mercy,  draw  back  to  other  hopes 
and  refuges  for  eternity  ;   hopes  and  refuges,  that  have  no 
other  tendency  or  effect,  than  to  keep  your  souls  in  all  the 
pollution  and  condemnation  of  sin  ?    Oh,  what  an  unfeeling 
requital  is  this  of  his   love !     To  resort  to  any  expedient 
to  quiet  yourselves  in  sin,  rather  than  give  yourselves  up 
to  such  a  Benefactor  and  Saviour.     To  go  away  from  him 
in  your  guilt,  and  rush  on  the  horrors  of  eternal  death, 
rather  than  fly  to  his  arms  for  deliverance,  and  humbly 
aecept  of  pardon  and   every  grace  as  his  gift.     There  is 
not  a  single  other  refuge,  to  which  you  cling  for  quieting 
your  fears,  but  you  show  in  it  all  this  strength  of  unwil- 
lingness   to  come    to  the    Saviour.     Infidelity,   universal 
salvation,  external  morality,  conviction,  intentions  about 
the  future,  self-righteousness,  confidence  in  yourselves  or 
others,  everything  else  on  which  you  can  fasten  a  hope, 
while  this  Saviour  is  nigh,  is  but  a  pretext  for  shunning 
him,    for   keeping   your    heart    from    him,  and  for  refus- 
ing him  the  joyful  surrender  of  your  souls.     And  what 
has    this    blessed    Saviour    done,    that    you   should    be 
so    offended    in    him — so  strongly    offended  that,    rather 
than    be    beholden    to    him    for   your   salvation,    and    go 
willingly  and  penitently  to  accept  it,  you  will  hide  under 
any  shelter  you  can  find,  though  you  die  for  it  eternally  ? 
Can  there   be  any   safety  in   those    refuges,  which  serve 
only  as  pretexts  for  cherishing  all  this  hardness  of  heart 
towards  Christ  ?     If  you    are    resting    in   any    such,    no 
matter  what  it  may  be,  however  fair  and  specious  it  may 
appear  to  you,  you  are  cherishing  all  this  guilt  and  hard- 
ness  of  heart  against  God    the  Saviour  ;  and    when  the 
floods  of  divine  wrath,   which   are   coming,  shall  sweep 
over  our  guilty  race,  they  must  flow   in  on  your  hiding 
place,  and,  if  you  continue  in  it,  overwhelm  you  in  destruc- 
tion.   To  this  thought,  I  would  now  direct  your  attention, 
III.  In  the  third  place  :  that,  unless  you  speedily  forsake 
every  such   refuge,  you   must  be   destroyed  by  the  judg- 
ment of  God. 

37 


282  No  Refuge  but   Christ. 


There  is  a  day  of  judgment  coming.  The  Almighty 
Ruler  over  us  is  a  holy  and  righteous  God,  whose  author- 
ity we  have  all  trampled  on,  whose  law  we  have  all 
broken,  and  to  whose  righteous  penalty  of  endless  death 
we  have  all  subjected  our  souls.  If  he  is  a  good  Being, 
and  seeks  the  happiness  of  his  moral  kingdom  ;  if  he  is  a 
righteous  Being,  and  wishes  to  enforce  his  good  laws  and 
make  his  authority  respected,  and  thereby  deserve  the 
confidence  of  his  subjects,  the  sinner  will  not  be  left  by 
him  to  go  on  unpunished,  nor  will  this  guilty  world  be 
suffered  to  go  forward  in  its  sins,  and  still  live,  as  it  is  now 
doing,  upon  his  abused  benefits.  A  reconciliation  must 
soon  take  place,  or  these  abused  benefits  will  all  be  with- 
drawn, and  the  guilty  left  to  perish  in  eternal  want  and 
pain. 

The  presages  that  there  is  a  day  of  coming  wrath  for 
sinners,  meet  you  on  every  side.  Your  own  consciences 
whisper  to  you,  that  God  must  come  down  in  his  wrath 
on  the  guilty,  if  he  is  a  holy  and  righteous  Being.  Your 
own  fears  suggest  that,  while  your  hearts  are  at  variance 
with  God,  there  can  be  no  safety.  Your  solicitude  to 
cling  to  something  as  your  refuge,  shows  that  you  wish 
protection  from  some  possible,  some  probable  evil.  Con- 
nected with  all  these  warnings  from  within  you,  there  are 
warnings  from  without.  The  angel  of  death  is  flying 
over  this  guilty  world,  and  sweeping  its  generations 
away  from  all  the  light  and  privileges  they  here  enjoy, 
bearing  the  souls  that  have  not  loved  God  into  his  holy 
presence,  to  receive  from  him  their  eternal  retribution. 
The  Lord  himself  hath  spoken  by  the  mouth  of  all  his 
holy  prophets,  and  has  declared  that  he  is  coming  to 
execute  judgment.  But  louder  than  all  other  warnings, 
more  convincing  even  than  all  the  threatenings  of  his 
wrath,  is  that  great  act  of  his  mercy  in  laying  with  his 
own  hand  in  Zion  a  foundation,  solid  as  the  everlasting 
rock,  precious  as  the  salvation  of  the  soul,  that  sinners 
might  repair  to  it  freely,  and  escape  the  storms  of  coming 
vengeance.  Nor  can  I  conceive  of  a  more  alarming  testi- 
mony, than  is  given  in  founding  on  this  Eternal  Rock  all 


No  Refuge  but  Christ.  283 


the  hopes  of  this  probationary  life.  For,  if  God  has  pro- 
vided for  us  a  refuge  like  this  ;  if  he  has  given  up  his 
Beloved  Son  to  the  agonies  of  crucifixion,  to  make  atone- 
ment for  our  sins,  and  serve  us  the  purposes  of  a  right- 
eousness in  law  ;  if  he  has  done  an  act  like  this,  in  order 
to  afford  us  a  means  of  deliverance,  he  sees  that  a  storm  of 
vengeance  is  at  hand,  which  shall  sweep  over  all  the  un- 
reconciled of  our  guilty  race.  He  sees  that  equity  and 
righteousness  to  his  kingdom  require  of  him,  that  he 
should  bring  down  on  the  impenitent  and  unreconciled  a 
judgment  and  wrath,  from  which  there  can  be  no  escape 
through  eternity.  And  the  very  offering  of  this  refuge, 
shows  that  this  day  of  wrath  is  at  hand.  If  the  evil  might 
be  delayed,  and  delayed  as  long  as  sinners  might  choose  ; 
if  he  felt  not  obliged,  as  a  God  of  justice,  to  appoint  some 
time  to  execute  judgment,  but  was  at  liberty  to  defer  it, 
and  defer  it  forever;  he  would  not  have  sent  Jesus  Christ 
into  the  world,  to  bear  the  atonement  of  our  iniquities. 
Such  an  indifference  to  executing  judgment,  as  is  sup- 
posed, viz.  that  he  has  no  determination  ever  to  enter 
upon  its  execution,  is  totally  inconsistent  with  taking  any 
steps  of  mercy  in  the  way  of  deliverance.  What  motive 
could  he  possibly  have  for  offering  his  Son  as  a  Redeemer 
to  sinners,  if  he  had  not  a  design  to  judge  the  world  in 
righteousness,  and  if  he  were  not  moved  by  mercy  to 
make  a  provision  of  possible  salvation  for  sinners,  who 
were  so  soon  to  come  up,  in  view  of  the  universe,  before 
his  judgment  seat,  and  receive  their  endless  retributions? 
The  very  provision  and  offer  of  this  refuge  shows,  that 
the  mercy  of  a  righteous  God  can  extend  no  other  deliv- 
erance to  you,  and  that  when  this  offer  is  withdrawn  he 
must,  if  it  have  been  neglected,  execute  judgment  and 
wrath,  that  extends  through  a  hopeless  eternity  and  over- 
whelms the  soul  in  the  pains  of  eternal  death.  And  all 
this  wrath  is  speedily  coming.  "Behold,"  said  this  Saviour, 
when  he  closed  the  volume  of  inspiration,  (and  these  are 
the  last  words,  which  in  that  holy  book  of  his  mercy  he 
leaves  vibrating  on  your  ears,)  "  Behold  I  come  quickly." 
The  day  of  respite,  the  day  for  deliverance,  ye  prisoners 


284  No  Refuge  but  Christ. 


of  hope,  is  short.  These  hours  fly  swiftly.  These  scenes 
of  redemption  are  soon  traversed.  The  cry  of  mercy  is, 
11  To  day."  You  must  choose  your  refuge  speedily.  One 
only  hope  is  set  before  you  ;  and  that  is  tried,  sure,  pre- 
cious, and  freely  offered  you.  Jesus  Christ  is  now  willing 
to  undertake  for  your  salvation,  if  you  will  surrender 
your  soul  to  his  care  and  government.  Renounce  every 
other  hope  and  surrender  yourself  at  his  feet,  and  he  will 
receive  you  and  protect  you  in  the  coming  day  of  judg- 
ment, and  lead  you  up  to  the  joys  of  everlasting  holiness. 
If  you  have  trusted  in  any  other  refuge,  you  have  no  time 
to  lose.  You  cannot  detain  yourselves  there  with  any 
safety  to  your  souls.  If  you  remain  in  it,  you  are  lost. 
The  judge  is  at  the  door.  When  you  leave  this  house  of 
your  pilgrimage,  you  are  in  his  presence.  You  look  up, 
and  lo !  the  great  day  of  his  wrath  is  come.  The  refuge 
in  which  you  trusted,  is  found  to  be  a  refuge  of  lies.  It 
never  brought  God  and  you  to  a  reconciliation  in  love. 
It  only  hardened  you  in  presumption.  It  only  helped 
you  to  slight  all  the  love  and  mercy  of  the  Saviour.  And 
now  the  flames  of  consuming  vengeance  must  reach  you. 
The  only  opportunity  of  reconciliation  is  past.  The  Judge 
is  come  to  take  vengeance  on  all  that  know  not  God  and 
have  not  obeyed  the  gospel.  His  eye  of  omniscience  will 
find  you  out,  and  pour  the  light  of  insufferable  brightness 
on  all  your  guilt.  His  heart  of  mercy  cannot  now  forgive 
you.  His  heart  of  holiness  and  righteousness  must  cast 
you  off  to  hopeless  misery.  And  his  arm  of  Almighty 
power  will  imprison  you,  in  your  wretchedness,  beyond 
all  escape. 

In  vain  will  you  contend  with  the  Almighty  in  judg- 
ment. There  will  be  no  refuge  from  his  wrath,  when  he 
shall  have  withdrawn  the  only  refuge  his  mercy  could 
grant,  and  have  risen  up  with  the  attributes  of  omnis- 
cience and  almighty  power  to  execute  judgment.  Other 
refuges  in  which  you  trusted  will  be  swept  awray,  and 
your  souls,  unprotected,  unreconciled  to  God  and  his 
holy  government,  must  suffer  the  everlasting  punishment 
which  sin  deserves  and  his  righteous  law  denounces. 


No  Refuge  but  Christ.  285 


The  subject  which  I  have  been  illustrating,  shows  the 
careless  sinner  that  he  is  in  danger  of  losing  his  soul,  and 
the  convicted  sinner  that  he  can  find  no  safety  but  in  im- 
mediate submission  to  Christ. 

Careless  sinner,  you  have  placed  your  reliance  on  some 
other  foundation  than  Christ  Jesus.  Though  you  may 
speculatively  believe  in  his  person  and  offices  as  a  Saviour, 
and  think  that  you  can  have  salvation  in  him,  yet  you  do 
not  repair  to  Him  with  an  all-reposing  confidence  that 
brings  you  as  a  sinner,  self-condemned  and  in  despair  of 
every  other  hope,  at  his  feet  to  renounce  your  pride  and 
selfishness  and  sin,  and  surrender  yourself  joyfully  to  him, 
to  be  saved  only  through  his  righteousness,  and  live  only 
to  his  praise.  He  is  not  practically  your  chosen  refuge — 
the  one  to  which  with  all  your  heart  you  cling.  You 
have  repaired  to  some  other  shelter,  in  which  you  can 
indulge  your  chosen  ways  and  refuse  the  self-denial  and 
the  cross  of  Christ.  You  have  entered  it,  in  order  to 
abide  the  storm.  You  depend  on  it,  and  are  at  ease. 
And  unless  something  shall  arouse  you,  you  will  remain 
in  that  hope,  till  you  perish  with  it  beyond  the  power  of 
redemption.  I  invite  you,  then,  to  solemn  consideration. 
You  are  acting  in  this  life,  whether  you  know  it  or  not, 
with  reference  to  the  interests  of  your  soul.  You  have 
now  an  opportunity  to  secure  its  salvation.  You  may  go 
freely  and  cast  it  with  full  surrender  on  the  care  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  find  in  him  that  solid  peace  which  arises  from 
hearty  reconciliation  with  God,  and  that  protection  in 
the  day  of  coming  judgment,  which  will  shield  you  from 
the  curse  of  the  violated  law  and  elevate  you  to  everlast- 
ing glory.  Why,  then,  think  of  resting  any  where  short 
of  an  actual  surrender  of  your  soul  to  Christ  Jesus  ? 
Wherever  else  you  place  it,  the  storms  of  vengeance  are 
to  fall.  Every  other  shelter  is  to  place  you  amid  the 
flames  of  retribution,  without  relief  and  mercy.  And 
will  you  thus  needlessly  keep  away  that  soul  from  the 
Saviour?  Will  you  throw  it  into  the  fires  of  eternal  judg- 
ment ?  What,  in  the  wide  universe,  calls  on  you  to  make 
this  eternal  sacrifice  of  your  soul,  when  your  way  is  open 


286  No  Refuge  but  Christ. 


directly  to  God  ?  Give  up  that  hope,  which  you  cannot 
indulge  without  the  guilt  of  suicide  to  the  soul.  It  only 
deludes  you  with  a  false  peace,  and  leaves  you  exposed 
to  eternal  ruin.  It  keeps  you  away  from  God,  your  duty, 
your  happiness ;  and  only  nourishes  your  pride,  your 
sensuality  and  selfishness.  Relinquish  it  at  once.  Do  you 
fear  to  be  without  a  hope?  But  you  are  in  reality  now 
without  God  and  without  hope.  Will  it  make  it  any  the 
worse,  if  you  come  so  far  to  yourself  as  to  see  your  real 
state  of  wretchedness  ?  Will  it  place  you  any  further 
from  heaven,  or  any  nearer  destruction  than  you  really 
are,  to  feel  the  truth  that  you  are  a  condemned  sinner,  in 
absolute  want  of  all  things  for  your  salvation,  and  that 
you  must  cast  yourself  on  the  mercy  of  Jesus  Christ 
alone,  or  perish  ?  Unless  you  consent  to  take  this  very 
place,  there  is  no  hope  for  you.  Every  semblance  of  one, 
to  which  you  cling,  is  but  a  delusion  that  keeps  you  away 
from  Christ  and  hardens  you  in  your  pride  and  selfishness. 
Act  then,  in  view  of  the  judgment  of  God  and  the  neces- 
sities of  your  soul.  Slumber  not  in  any  delusion.  Flat- 
ter not  yourself  in  your  own  eyes.  Let  the  fear  of  God 
be  before  you.  "  For  the  Lord  shall  rise  up  as  in  mount 
Perazim,  he  shall  be  wroth  as  in  the  valley  of  Gibeon, 
that  he  may  do  his  work,  his  strange  work ;  that  he  may 
bring  to  pass  his  act,  his  strange  act.  For  I  have  heard 
from  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts  a  consumption,  even  deter- 
mined upon  the  whole  earth." 

But  the  sinner,  who  is  thoughtful  and  convinced  of  his 
need  of  salvation,  has  a  deep  interest  in  the  subject  which 
I  have  been  illustrating.  He  is  shown,  that  he  can  find  no 
safety  but  in  an  immediate  submission  to  Christ  Jesus,  his 
only  Saviour  and  Lord.  I  know  not  whether  there  is  one 
sinner  here  that  carries  within  him  a  thoughtful  and 
anxious  heart  to  day.  Yet  every  heart  knoweth  its  own 
bitterness,  and  in  many  a  bosom  anxieties  and  convictions 
often  spring  up,  which  are  not  directly  disclosed  to  man. 
And  if  any  one  before  me  is  thus  pining  away  in  his  sins, 
with  secret  convictions  and  apprehensions  which  he  is 
striving  to  suppress,  to  him  I  will  address  myself.  You 


No  Refuge  but  Christ.  287 


have,  my  fellow-sinner,  at  least  ascertained  one  fact, — that, 
notwithstanding  everything  to  which  you  may  have  looked 
for  safety,  your  soul  is  still  in  danger ;  exposed  to  the 
terrors  of  a  guilty  conscience,  and  the  condemning  sen- 
tence of  your  final  Judge.  You  are  wandering  shelter- 
less, and  find  no  solid  rest  for  your  soul.  But  there  is  no 
safety  in  remaining  where  you  are.  Your  conviction  and 
fears,  will  never  make  a  refuge  for  you.  There  is  no  hope 
for  you  but  one,  and  you  must  flee  with  all  your  heart  to 
that  refuge.  This  is  your  first  duty,  your  immediate 
duty,  and  the  longer  you  delay  it,  the  more  do  you  resist 
your  own  conviction  and  the  strivings  of  the  Spirit  of 
God.  The  longer  you  delay  it,  the  greater  is  the  danger, 
that  your  deceitful  heart  and  the  wiles  of  the  Adversary 
will  lead  you  to  fall  back  for  hope  and  quietness  to  some 
refuge  of  lies.  Come  then  at  once  to  Jesus  Christ,  that 
you  may  obtain  true  rest  and  happiness  to  your  soul. 
Come  just  as  you  are.  You  cannot  render  yourself  any 
better  or  more  deserving  by  delay.  You  must  come  in  all 
the  shame  of  your  guilt  and  poverty,  if  you  come  at  all. 
He  is  willing  to  receive  you,  if  you  will  but  renounce 
your  sin  and  pride  at  his  feet,  and  fully  give  up  your  soul 
to  him,  to  receive  from  him  your  righteousness,  sanctifica- 
tion  and  redemption.  He  is  that  High  and  Holy  One,  who 
sways  the  scepter  over  the  universe,  and  who  became  a  man 
of  sorrows  for  the  very  purpose  of  offering  you  his  salvation. 
He  has  put  on  the  aspect  and  the  very  feelings  of  humanity, 
in  order  to  come  the  nearer  to  our  hearts.  You  may  go 
and  surrender  yourself  to  him,  with  all  the  fearless  confi- 
dence you  would  to  any  benevolent  and  righteous  man, 
who  should  offer  you  his  protection  on  any  emergency. 
Only  he  is  a  thousand  fold  more  pure  in  his  righteousness, 
and  more  ardent  in  his  benevolence  and  compassion ;  and 
he  is  calling  upon  you,  in  an  emergency  as  great  as  your 
everlasting  condemnation  to  the  wrath  of  God.  He  is 
that  man,  who  shall  be  as  a  hiding  place  from  the  wind 
and  a  covert  from  the  tempest.  Oh  !  let  him  draw  you 
to  his  throne  with  the  cords  of  his  humanity  and  compas- 
sion. Give  up  yourself  to  him,  whatever  sacrifices  it 


288  No  Refuge  but  Christ. 


costs  you,  and  take  to  your  soul  freely  the  joys  of  his 
salvation.  Depend  on  him,  from  this  hour  and  through 
life,  as  the  Saviour  to  whom  alone  you  look  for  salvation  ; 
for  whose  favor  you  will  forsake  all  things ;  to  whose 
praise  alone  you  desire  to  live;  and  in  whose  righteous- 
ness alone  you  would  be  found  in  the  coming  day  of 
wrath.  In  this  very  way,  Paul  accepted  of  his  Saviour. 
In  this  very  way,  he  pressed  forward  through  life  in  the 
Christian  race,  and  threw  himself  over  the  goal  at  last  as 
a  victor,  and  laid  hold  on  the  crown  of  everlasting  life 
and  glory.  "  What  things  were  gain  to  me,  those  I  count- 
ed loss  for  Christ.  Yea  !  doubtless,  and  I  count  all  things 
but  loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ 
Jesus  my  Lord :  for  whom  I  have  suffered  the  loss  of  all 
things,  and  do  count  them  but  dross  that  I  may  win 
Christ  and  be  found  in  him,  not  having  mine  own  right- 
eousness which  is  of  the  law,  but  that  which  is  through 
the  faith  of  Christ — the  righteousness  which  is  of  God  by 
faith," — "  the  righteousness  "  which  God,  the  Judge  of  all, 
will  acknowledge  in  the  last  day,  and  in  which"  he  will 
accept  the  redeemed  into  his  everlasting  kingdom  ! 

Who  is  there  here,  that  will  thus  accept  the  Saviour? 
Who  will  thus  enter  into  reconciliation  with  God  ?  Who 
will  thus  prepare  for  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ?  Who 
will  thus  escape  from  the  prison  of  despair,  and  enter  into 
the  inheritance  of  endless  glory  ?  Methinks  I  hear  one  and 
another  say,  with  trembling  yet  confiding  faith,  *  I  will.' 
Take  that  resolve,  returning  sinner,  with  all  thy  heart ! 
Jesus  is  ready  to  receive  thee  to  the  refuge  of  his  grace, 
and  thou  wilt  never  be  ashamed  of  closing  with  his  pro- 
posal of  salvation. 


THE  DUTY  OF  REPROOF, 


EPHESIANS,    V:    n. 

HAVE    NO    FELLOWSHIP    WITH    THE    UNFRUITFUL    WORKS    OF    DARKNESS  ;    BUT 
RATHER  REPROVE  THEM. 

WORKS  of  darkness,  literally,  are  those  deeds  of  sin, 
which  men  would  blush  to  commit  under  the  light  of 
day.  But  the  desire  of  concealment,  which  throws  so 
many  crimes,  actually,  into  the  night,  characterizes,  to 
some  extent,  every  species  of  overt  iniquity  ;  and  on  this 
ground,  all  this  class  of  actions  are  properly  denominated 
"  works  of  darkness  " — unfit  for  the  light  of  day. 

The  apostle  knew  that  his  converts  at  Ephesus  had 
once  been  addicted  to  such  conduct,  and  that  they  were 
still  surrounded  by  the  children  of  disobedience,  who 
were  indulging  in  such  iniquities  ;  and,  in  the  text,  he 
gives  them  counsel  respecting  their  behavior  towards 
these  workers  of  iniquity.  Have  no  fellowship  with  their 
deeds.  Never  join  them  in  their  sins.  Never  encourage 
them  by  example.  Never  allow  yourselves  to  do  that, 
which  they  can  plausibly  allege  in  their  own  justification  ; 
"  but  rather  reprove  them."  Let  your  conduct  stand 
forth  as  a  sentence  of  condemnation  against  their  sins. 
Let  your  opinions  be  known  to  carry  with  them  a  holy 
indignation  against  their  crimes.  Reprove  them.  Go, 
bear  the  indignation  and  grief  of  your  hearts  into  their 
presence  ;  and  tell  them — when  no  other  eye  sees  them 
but  yours  and  your  Maker's — tell  them  their  faults  to 
their  face.  Carry  the  expostulations  of  love  to  their  ears, 
and,  with  all  the  persuasion  you  can  draw  from  the  word 
of  Christ,  claim  a  hearing. 

Such  are  the  directions  of  the  apostle  to  Christians, 
who  were  surrounded  by  the  sinful  deeds  of  the  wicked— 

38 


290  The  Diity  of  Reproof. 


not  only  to  shun  the  fellowship  with  them  that  would  be 
ruinous  to  themselves,  but  to  carry  to  them  the  reproot 
that  might  lead  to  their  salvation.  I  learn  from  the 
words,  therefore,  a  duty  which  belongs  to  the  friends  of 
God  and  virtue  in  all  ages,  when  surrounded  by  the 
crimes  of  the  wicked — THE  DUTY  OF  REPROOF. 

In  pursuing  the  subject,  I  would  point  out  some  of  the 
methods,  in  which  you  may  with  propriety  reprove  the 
wicked  for  their  sins,  and  mention  some  considerations 
which  may  serve  to  enforce  this  duty. 

Among  the  methods,  in  which  you  may  with  propriety 
reprove  the  wicked  for  their  sins,  I  specify  the  following  : 

I.  By  refusal  to  comply  with  their  enticements. 

The  slightest  species  of  reproof  that  can  be  given  to 
sinners,  arises  from  the  refusal  to  unite  with  them  in  their 
crimes.  When  they  are  grown  so  bold  in  iniquity,  as  to 
solicit  the  followers  of  Christ  to  come  down  from  the 
height  of  their  profession  and  hopes,  to  unite  with  them 
in  their  sins  and  follies,  the  mildest  reproof  that  can  pos- 
sibly be  given  is,  to  return  to  their  solicitations  a  prompt 
and  decided  negative.  Unless  the  Christian  can  give  so 
slight  a  reproof  to  a  sinner,  as  to  say  *  no '  to  his  entice- 
ments, the  sinner  will  never  fear  reproofs  from  his  exam- 
ple or  his  lips.  Nor  is  there  any  impropriety  in  using 
with  sinners  this  species  of  reproof.  They  have  no  claim 
on  you,  surely,  to  unite  with  them  in  their  deeds  of  folly. 
You  are  lords  over  your  own  conduct,  and  may  make 
your  own  choice,  without  saying  why  or  wherefore  to 
any  but  your  Master  in  heaven.  In  the  exercise  of  your 
unalienable  rights,  you  may  throw  a  flat  denial  in  the  face 
of  every  enticing  sinner  ;  and  by  it  effectually  say,  '  Go 
thy  way.  When  I  have  need  of  thee,  I  will  call  for  thee. 
Obtrude  not  on  me  thy  sinful  schemes.  Take  the  reproof 
my  denial  gives  thee.' 

II.  You  may  reprove  the  wicked,  by  an  example  opposed 
to  their  practices. 

A  still  stronger  reproof  is  thus  conveyed  to  the  wicked, 
by  the  light  that  is  reflected  upon  them  from  examples  of 
piety  and  virtue.  The  man  who  always  carries  with  him 


The  Duty  of  Reproof  .  291 


into  their  society  the  stern  front  of  unyielding  virtue  ; 
who  is  known  by  his  uniform  conduct  to  bear  in  his  breast 
sentiments  of  abhorrence  and  indignation  towards  crime  ; 
who  shows  himself  so  firmly  attached  to  the  government 
of  God,  and  the  schemes  of  divine  benevolence,  as  to 
repel  even  the  approaches  of  their  solicitations  ;  speaks, 
with  silent  and  impressive  eloquence,  the  language  of 
reproof  to  their  consciences.  Incomparably  more  is  done 
by  the  heavenly  light  attending  such  reproof,  than  can  be 
by  all  the  reproofs  of  the  tongue  without  it.  The  wicked 
see  in  such  examples  the  mirror,  that  reflects  the  glory  of 
the  Deity,  the  authority  of  his  law,  the  excellence  of 
virtue,  the  deformity  of  sin.  They  stand 

"  Abashed,  and  see  how  awful  goodness  is." 

And  in  the  midst  of  such  exhibitions  of  character,  they 
pass  on  themselves  the  verdict  of  condemnation  for  their 
sins. 

Nor  is  there  any  impropriety  in  bearing  to  the  wicked 
this  form  of  reproof.  Your  right  to  obey  the  God  of 
heaven,  to  show  your  loyalty — no  man  can  wrest  from 
you.  You  need  only  be  loyal  and  be  virtuous  among 
your  companions,  and  the  living  reproof  is  carried  home 
to  their  consciences.  As  it  has  been  eloquently  remarked 
of  our  republican  country,  that  her  very  existence  carries 
up  a  reproof  to  the  throne  of  tyrants,  and  a  refutation  of 
all  the  arguments  by  which  they  would  uphold  arbitrary 
rule,  so  the  very  existence  of  stern  piety  and  virtue  is 
itself  a  stinging  reproof  to  the  wicked,  and  a  loud  con- 
demnation of  their  guilt  and  folly. 

III.  You  may  reprove  the  wicked,  by  direct  address  to 
their  consciences. 

The  highest  form  of  reproof,  is  that  of  bearing  to  the 
wicked  the  direct  expression  of  virtuous  grief  and  indig- 
nation, which  their  conduct  excites  in  your  souls.  When, 
in  refusing  communion  with  them  in  their  evil  deeds,  or 
in  exhibiting  before  them  virtuous  examples,  you  tacitly 
convey  reproof  to  their  consciences,  it  may  not  be  so 
apparent  to  them  that  you  design  particularly  to  reprove 


292  The  Duty  of  Reproof. 


them  for  their  ways  ;  and  they  may  neglect,  on  their  own 
part,  faithfully  to  make  an  application  to  themselves  of  a 
reproof,  which  they  share  in  common  with  many  others. 
But  when,  in  the  spirit  of  meekness  that  disarms  opposi- 
tion, you  go  to  the  sinner,  and  pour  into  his  ear  the 
recital  of  his  crimes,  the  complaints  of  injured  virtue,  the 
warnings  of  interceding  grace  ;  his  conscience  owns,  in 
you,  a  messenger  of  God,  come  to  administer  the  right- 
eous and  merciful  reproofs  of  incensed,  yet  forbearing 
love.  This  direct  address  is  reproof,  that  singles  him  out 
to  his  own  conscience ;  and  forces  him  to  draw  off  his 
attention  from  the  guilt  of  others  to  his  own,  with  the 
irresistible  application,  "  Thou  art  the  man."  Reviews 
his  crimes  through  the  unprejudiced  feelings  of  a  friend 
to  virtue.  Conscience  is  against  him,  and  with  his  re- 
prover :  and  there  arises  a  mighty  struggle  in  his  mind 
betwixt  the  opposing  powers  of  sin  and  virtue  ;  a  struggle 
which  must  end,  either  in  the  awful  victory  of  guilt  over 
conscience,  or  in  the  victory,  forever  blest, -of  conscience 
over  guilt. 

Nor  is  there  any  impropriety  in  using  this  most  power- 
ful and  most  salutary  form  of  reproof.  Your  tongues 
were  given  you  for  use ;  and  though  there  are  certain 
bounds  of  propriety  and  wisdom  in  the  use,  with  respect 
to  the  age,  and  station,  and  character,  and  circumstances, 
of  those  whom  you  address,  of  which  God  has  given  all 
of  you,  I  hope,  reason  and  common  sense  enough  to 
judge  ;  yet  these  limitations  of  wisdom  form  no  argument 
against  the  legitimate  use.  To  what  use  can  they  better 
be  appropriated,  than  to  doing  good  ?  Some  may  make 
too  much  of  their  tongues  in  this  matter  ;  but  others  too 
little.  Yet  no  man  can  deny  you  the  right  to  use,  for  the 
benefit  of  others,  this  glory  of  your  frame.  You  should, 
therefore,  stand  firm  in  this  liberty  wherewith  God  your 
Maker  has  endowed  you. 

With  this  view  of  the  proper  methods  of  administering 
reproof,  I  would  now  turn  your  attention  to  some  of  the 
considerations,  which  should  inspire  you  ivith  resolution  to 
perform  the  duty. 


The  Duty  of  Reproof.  293 


1.  You  have  on  your  side  the  authority  of  God.     God 
said,    through   Paul,    to  his  children   at    Ephesus,    while 
surrounded   with   the  crimes  and   iniquities  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, and  says  in  effect  to  his  children  in  all  ages,  respect- 
ing the  iniquitous  among  whom  their  lot  is  cast,  "  Reprove 
them."     He  has  issued  forth  his  warrant  to  all  his  friends 
on  the  earth,  to  be  reprovers  of  the  vicious.     He  has  bid- 
den them  take  the  counsels  and  warnings  of  his  word,  and 
administer  the  reproofs  of  his  offended,  yet  waiting  love, 
to  those  who  are  his  enemies.    The  command  has  reached 
your  ear.     "  Reprove  them,"  by  every  method  of  wisdom 
and   love.     With   the   warrant  of  his  authority,  you  are 
safe.     He   will  protect  you  and  bless  you,   w^hile  on  his 
errands  of  mercy  ;  and  give  you  a  mouth  and  wisdom, 
which    no  adversary  will   be    able   to   gainsay  or   resist. 
Carry  home  the  power  of  religion  to  their  hearts.     "  Who 
will  harm  you,"  if,  under  his  authority,  "ye  be  followers  of 
that  which   is  good?"     Will  you  shrink  before  his  ene- 
mies ?     Shall   a  face  of  flesh  and  blood  move  you  from 
your  purposed  obedience  to  God  ?     How,  from  so  humili- 
ating a  vanquishment,  can  you   return  to  the  throne  of 
grace,  or  appear  at  the  throne  of  judgment,  and  face  the 
God  of  all  power  ?     Have  faith  in  God  ;  and  be  strong  to 
reprove  his  enemies. 

2.  You  have  on  your  side  the  examples  of  all  the  wise 
and  holy. 

God  and  all  his  faithful  servants  have  ever  acted  as 
reprovers  of  sin.  God,  in  the  laws  of  his  government, 
the  arrangements  of  his  providence,  and  the  messages  of 
his  word,  is  engaged  in  administering  solemn  reproof  to 
his  enemies.  The  Lord  Jesus,  the  high  pattern  you  pro- 
pose to  copy  into  your  lives,  during  his  embassy  to  earth, 
and  while  dwelling  among  the  enemies  of  God,  was  no 
idle  spectator  of  those  sins,  by  which  they  were  wounding 
infinite  purity  and  goodness,  and  ruining  themselves  and 
others.  He  took  the  part  of  God  against  an  evil  world  ; 
and  resisted  all  its  temptations  and  offers  ;  and  held  before 
it  the  unsullied  light  of  his  example  and  precepts,  to  show 
its  deformity.  He  addressed  to  its  hardened  sons  the 


294  The  Duty  of  Reproof. 


reproofs  of  indignant  love, — not  consulting  to  please  him- 
self, but  to  perform  his  duty, — till  he  could  cry,  with  the 
prophet,  unto  God  his  Father,  "  The  reproaches  of  them 
that  reproached  thee,  fell  on  me."  The  Spirit  of  grace, 
in  the  mission  he  is  accomplishing,  is  engaged  in  reproving 
a  guilty  world  of  sin,  and  in  carrying  home  to  the  con- 
sciences of  individual  sinners  the  stern  rebukes  of  God's 
unbending  word.  You  are  countenanced  in  reproving 
sin,  by  all  the  faithful  servants  of  God  ;  by  Enoch,  Noah, 
Abraham,  Lot,  and  all  the  patriarchs ;  by  Moses,  Elijah, 
Isaiah,  Ezekiel,  Daniel,  and  all  the  prophets ;  by  Peter, 
James,  Paul,  and  all  the  apostles ;  by  all  the  friends  of 
God,  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  to  this  day,  whose 
bodies  are  deposited  with  us,  whose  souls  are  in  heaven, 
and  whose  memories  are  embalmed  in  the  records  of  the 
Church  ;  and  by  all,  in  every  place  on  earth,  who  are  now 
the  followers  of  Christ  in  sincerity  and  truth  :  in  whose 
lives  and  on  whose  lips  dwells  the  law  of  truth  and  kind- 
ness. All  this  cloud  of  worthies,  with  the  great  God  at 
their  head,  have  arrayed  their  example  before  you,  while 
surrounded  by  the  filthy  conversation  of  the  wicked,  to 
have  no  fellowship  with  them,  but  boldly  to  reprove. 
Will  you  not  then  associate  yourselves  with  this  company 
of  the  worthy,  in  their  noble  deeds  ?  How  can  you 
expect  to  meet  their  approbation,  or  share  in  their 
triumphs,  if  you  enter  not  with  them  into  their  labors 
of  love  ? 

3.  You  have  on  your  side  the  interests  of  the  Church. 

How  long  will  it  take  the  professed  followers  of  Christ, 
to  learn  that  they  cannot  maintain  a  neutrality  in  the 
world  ?  that  the  enemies  of  God  are  enemies  ?  and  that 
the  mere  attempt  at  neutrality  is  a  concession  made  them, 
next  to  base  submission?  Oh,  how  humiliating  to  be 
governed,  and  trampled  on,  and  triumphed  over,  by  the 
enemies  of  God, —  when  a  decided  fidelity,  and  a  bold 
reproof  administered  to  them  for  their  sins,  would  lift  you 
high  above  their  power,  and  put  ten  thousand  to  flight ! 

The  Church  of  God  is  not  capable  of  flourishing,  except 
as  she  embosoms  within  her  that  energy  of  holy  purpose 


The  Duty  of  Reproof  .  295 


and  example,  and  speaks  forth  the  word  of  God  in  that 
tone  of  boldness,  which  administers  reproof  to  the  negli- 
gent, the  worldly,  the  vicious,  the  hardened,  who  sur- 
round her,  and  who  assail  her  peace  and  welfare.  Arrayed 
in  this  glory,  she  strikes  dismay  into  the  host  of  her  foes; 
she  spreads  abroad  the  conquests  of  her  King ;  and  even 
collects  the  vanquished  with  joy  around  her  standard  of 
Eternal  Life.  The  time  of  her  reproofs  is  the  time  of  her 
safety  and  her  triumphs.  Within  her  borders  is  purity, 
light,  hope,  joy  ;  and  without,  terror,  dismay,  shame,  sub- 
mission. Even  they  that  despised  her,  come  bending  to 
her,  calling  her,  the  City  of  the  Lord,  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel. 

Yield  not  up,  then,  the  everlasting  interests  of  religion 
and  the  Church  to  the  follies  of  man.  Assert  the  honor  of 
your  high  calling,  and  boldly  carry  reproof  to  the  enemies 
of  Zion.  Self-defense,  the  first  law  of  nature,  and  defense 
of  Christ's  cause,  the  first  law  of  Christianity,  unite  to 
call  you  to  this  holy  purpose,  and  to  arm  you  with  a 
vigorous  resolution. 

4.  You  have  on  your  side  the  welfare  of  sinners  them- 
selves. 

The  works  of  sin  and  darkness  to  which  they  addict 
themselves,  are  unfruitful  in  anything  but  evil.  They  are 
ruining  themselves  and  their  companions  in  guilt :  for  the 
wages  of  sin  is  death.  They  will  not  escape,  unless  they 
are  reclaimed  from  their  sins  and  errors.  They  are  sear- 
ing their  consciences,  blasting  their  reputation,  destroy- 
ing their  comforts,  and  plunging  their  souls  in  eternal 
flames  :  and  how  shall  they  be  recalled  to  virtue  and  to 
happiness,  if  they  are  neglected,  unrestrained,  and  un- 
reproved  by  the  friends  of  God  ?  Where  is  their  hope,  if 
none  possess  disinterested  love  enough,  to  address  to  them 
the  reproofs  that  are  necessary  to  their  salvation  ?  A 
sinner  unreproved,  grows  bold  in  iniquity.  A  sinner 
unreproved,  spreads  wide  the  contagion  of  sin.  He  is 
daily  adding  to  his  guilt,  and  fitting  himself  and  others 
for  more  aggravated  woe.  You  are  then  guilty  of  a  cruel 
neglect  of  his  welfare  and  influence  ;  if,  while  knowing  his 


296  The  Duty  of  Reproof. 


faults,  and  knowing  how  freely  they  are  published  and 
censured  behind  his  back,  and  knowing  how  they  are 
bringing  down  on  his  soul  the  insupportable  judgments 
of  heaven,  you  do  not,  at  once,  bear  into  his  presence 
the  rebukes  and  counsels  of  Infinite  Love.  The  Scrip- 
tures impliedly  charge  this  cruelty  on  those  who  neglect 
the  duty,  by  the  form  in  which  they  enjoin  it :  "  Thou 
shalt  not  hate  thy  brother  in  thy  heart:  thou  shalt  in  any 
wise  rebuke  thy  neighbor ;  and  shalt  not  suffer  sin  upon 
him." 

But,  when  you  administer  the  faithful  rebukes  of  love  to 
sinners  around  you,  you  are  seeking  by  necessary  means 
the  high  object  of  "  saving  their  souls  from  death,  and 
hiding  a  multitude  of  sins."  Their  feelings  may  be 
wounded,  while  stung  with  a  view  of  their  deformities 
and  the  indignations  of  virtue  ;  but  you  are  only  probing, 
to  heal ;  yog  are  but  administering  the  necessary  medicine, 
to  effect  a  recovery.  Their  consciences,  even  at  the  time, 
and  forever  afterwards,  do  justice  to  you,  in  testifying  to 
your  self-denying  kindness  ;  and  if,  subdued  and  melted  by 
your  reproofs,  they  are  recovered  to  virtue,  their  hearts 
will  forever  bless  you,  as  the  kindest  of  benefactors. 
Hundreds  now  on  earth  are  joyfully  walking,  arm  in  arm, 
the  way  to  the  heavenly  Zion,  who  once  met  each  other 
in  the  unpleasant  relation  of  reprovers  and  reproved,  and 
were  mingling  over  reproved  guilt  their  tears  of  bitter- 
ness. And  thousands  now  in  glory  are  praising  God,  for 
those  kind  benefactors  who,  overlooking  the  trials  they 
might  meet  with  from  ingratitude  and  guilt,  dared,  un- 
solicited, to  address  to  them  the  rebukes  of  Infinite 
Mercy. 

The  very  welfare  of  sinners,  then,  here  and  in  eternity, 
demands  of  you  fidelity  in  this  duty — demands  that  you 
have  no  fellowship  with  them  in  works  of  darkness,  but 
that  you  boldly  reprove. 

In  view,  then,  of  the  methods  in  which  you  may  convey 
reproof  to  sinners,  and  of  the  considerations  which 
encourage  and  embolden  you  to  do  it,  I  would  call  upon 
all  the  friends  of  God  among  you  to  perform  this  duty. 


The  Duty  of  Reproof  .  297 


There  is  always  a  sufficient  call  for  its  performance  in  this 
world  of  evil.  You  need  not  go  back  to  the  ancient 
heathen  of  Ephesus — you  need  not  go  abroad  to  be- 
nighted Pagans — you  need  not  search  out  the  dark  por- 
tions of  this  Christian  country — you  need  not,  probably, 
look  beyond  the  limits  of  your  own  neighborhood — to 
find  those  who  are  engaged  in  the  unfruitful  works  of 
darkness.  It  is  your  lot,  as  it  has  been  of  the  Church  in 
all  ages,  to  be  surrounded  by  the  wickedness  of  blinded 
sinners.  Travelers  with  you  to  eternity — without  God 
and  without  hope — they  imperiously  demand  of  you  a 
faithful  discharge  of  this  duty. 

"  Be  strong  and  do  it."  Let  no.  leaven  of  iniquity 
among  yourselves,  corrupt  with  inefficiency  the  whole 
mass.  Let  no  root  of  bitterness  spring  up  to  defile  many 
—to  hide  the  light  of  example,  and  stifle  the  voice  that 
would  administer  reproof. 

"Be  strong  and  do  it."  Fear  not  the  sneers  of  the 
impious,  or  the  displeasure  of  the  reproved.  The  God 
of  Israel  and  the  hosts  of  the  wise  are  with  you,  the 
interests  of  Zion  and  of  sinners  are  with  you,  in  the  per- 
formance of  this  duty. 

"  Be  strong  and  do  it."  And  Zion  shall  arise.  The 
glory  of  the  Lord  shall  compass  her,  as  with  walls  of  fire. 
Her  enemies  shall  be  subdued  into  contrition.  Converts 
shall  be  multiplied  as  the  drops  of  the  morning.  Joy 
shall  be  awakened  on  earth  and  in  heaven  over  reclaimed 
and  forgiven  sinners. 

In  view  of  this  duty,  and  the  considerations  which  urge 
it  upon  the  friends  of  God,  I  may  surely  warn  the  workers 
of  iniquity,  to  receive  reproofs  with  humility  and  gratitude. 

You  are  reproved  by  the  word  of  the  living  God.  You 
are  reproved  by  your  own  conscience.  And,  if  you  are 
not  that  hardened  scorner,  who  mocks  at  all  things 
serious,  you  may  be  favored  with  the  reproofs  of  man. 
Remember,  that  he,  who  in  love  reproves  you,  is  a  friend 
— a  true  friend — a  tried  friend — whose  love  has  broken 
through  many  obstacles  to  meet  you  with  its  warnings  ; 
and  who  brings  to  you  the  appeals  of  truth  and  soberness 

39 


298  The  Duty  of  Reproof. 


—who  comes,  commissioned  of  God,  and  countenanced 
by  all  the  good  and  wise,  to  urge  the  interests  of  true 
piety,  and  to  seek  the  salvation  of  your  soul.  I  adjure 
you  by  the  living  Saviour,  trifle  not  with  reproof.  It  is 
one  of  the  last  remedies  of  divine  forbearance.  Unless 
you  are  humbled  by  it  before  God,  I  am  compelled  to 
say,  you  are  fast  ripening  for  ruin.  Slighted  reproofs 
accumulate  the  stores  of  divine  wrath.  He  that  will  not 
receive  severe  remedies,  and  who  cannot  be  restored  by 
mild  ones,  must  die !  Oh  !  hear  it,  ye  that  sport  your- 
selves in  your  own  deceivings,  on  the  borders  of  eternity, 

—hear  it :  it  is  the  last,  kind  warning  of  injured,  insulted 

Mercy — "  HE  THAT,  BEING  OFTEN  REPROVED,  HARDENETH 
HIS  NECK,  SHALL  SUDDENLY  BE  DESTROYED,  AND  THAT 

WITHOUT  REMEDY  !  "  Sinners,  there  is  awful  meaning  in 
those  words  of  God  ! 


THE  CAUSE  OE  JEHOVAH  AGAINST  BAAL,  TRIED 
BEFORE  ISRAEL   ON  CARMEL. 


I.  KINGS,   XVIII :  17—46. 

THE  portion  of  sacred  history,  to  which  I  have  referred, 
is  an  account  of  the  cause  of  Jehovah*  against  Baal,  tried 
before  Israel  at  the  altar  of  sacrifice  on  Carmel. 

This  trial  was  instituted  by  the  prophet  Elijah,  in  behalf, 
and  under  the  direction,  of  Jehovah.  The  circumstances, 
which  gave  rise  to  the  trial,  were  these:  Three  years 
before,  Elijah,  offended  with  the  great  sin  of  Ahab  in 
introducing  the  service  of  Baal  into  Israel,  had  sol- 
emnly sworn  to  that  monarch,  that  there  should  not  be 
rain  or  dew  in  the  land  any  more,  except  at  his  word. 
He  then  left  the  presence  of  Ahab,  and  withdrawing 
from  the  land  of  Israel,  lived  in  concealment  at  Zareptha, 
in  Zidon.  But  now,  the  famine  which  arose  in  conse- 
quence of  the  drouth,  pressed  sorely  on  all  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  land ;  and  Jehovah,  remembering  mercy 
towards  his  afflicted  people,  ordered  the  prophet  to  leave 
his  concealment  and  appear  at  the  court.  "  Go,  show 
thyself  unto  Ahab :  and  I  will  send  rain  upon  the  earth." 
With  this  command  and  promise  of  God,  directing  and 
upholding  him,  he  was  emboldened,  not  only  to  face  the 
incensed  monarch  again,  but  to  require  of  him,  as  the 
condition  on  which  the  mercy  of  the  rain  should  be 

*  In  the  treatment  of  this  subject,  I  prefer  to  use  the  specific  name,  Jeho- 
vah— as  employed  in  the  original  Hebrew.  Our  translators  have  put  in  its 
place  the  generic  title,  the  Lord,  in  every  instance  in  the  Old  Testament  but 
four :  following,  instead  of  the  original,  the  Septuagint  version  ;  the  work  of 
Jewish  translators,  who,  in  their  superstitious  reverence  at  that  period  for  the 
unpronounceable  name,  Jehovah,  neither  introduced  it  nor  translated  it,  but 
substituted  the  latter  title  for  it. 


3OO  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 


granted,  that  he  should  give  an  opportunity  for  a  public 
trial,  before  the  people,  of  the  cause  of  Jehovah  and  Baal. 
The  account  of  his  appearance  before  the  monarch,  is 
thus  stated:  (v.  17,  18,  19:)  "And  it  came  to  pass,  that 
when  Ahab  saw  Elijah,  that  Ahab  said  unto  him  :  Art 
thou  he  that  troubleth  Israel  ?  And  he  answered,  /  have 
not  troubled  Israel ;  but  thou  and  thy  fathers  house,  in 
that  ye  have  forsaken  the  commandments  of  the  Lord,  and 
thou  hast  followed  Baalim.  Now,  therefore,  send  and 
gather  to  me  all  Israel  unto  Mount  Carmel,  and  the 
prophets  of  Baal  four  hundred  and  fifty,  and  the  prophets 
of  the  groves  four  hundred,  which  eat  at  Jezebel's  table." 
This  was  a  bold  summons  to  address  to  an  offended  mon- 
arch ;  but  there  was  infinite  power  back  of  the  prophet : 
and  starvation  by  famine,  or  deliverance  through  this 
hated  prophet,  was  the  only  alternative  set  before  the 
king :  so  the  summons  is  obeyed,  and  the  opportunity 
presented  for  Jehovah  to  establish  his  authority  over  the 
hearts  of  his  people,  and  prepare  them  to  receive  the 
blessing,  (v.  20.)  "  So  Ahab  sent  unto  all  the  children  of 
Israel,  and  gathered  the  prophets  together  unto  Mount 
Carmel." 

The  national  assembly  is  convened  on  Carmel.  The 
mountain  range  known  by  that  name,  rises  gently  from  the 
plain  of  Esdraelon  to  the  height  of  fifteen  hundred  feet,  and 
runs  a  few  miles  to  the  northwest;  when,  sloping  down 
into  a  promontory,  it  dips  its  foot  in  the  waters  of  the 
Mediterranean.  Covered  over  its  whole  sloping  and 
rolling  surface  with  a  rich  soil,  it  is,  in  usual  seasons, 
adorned  with  a  luxuriant  vegetation,  from  which  it  de-. 
rives  its  name,  Carmel, — a  vineyard  or  fruitful  field  ;  and, 
for  its  graceful  form  and  rich  verdure,  it  was  set  forth  as 
an  image  of  beauty*  and  fertility  by  the  Hebrew  poets. 
But  now,  scorched  by  the  drought  of  three  years,  its 
excellency  is  faded.  Here,  on  this  mountain  eleva- 
tion, on  the  north-eastern  side,  probably,  which  looks 
towards  Jezreel,  the  city  of  Ahab,  and  towards  the  brook 
Kishon  flowing  at  its  base,  the  vast  assembly  are  gathered. 
Ahab,  the  king,  in  his  pavilion  with  his  attendants;  the 


Tried  before  Israel  on  Car  me  I.  301 


prophets  of  Baal,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Elijah,  the  prophet 
of  Jehovah  on  the  other, — the  opposing  advocates  ;— and, 
at  a  respectful  distance  around  and  below,  the  thousands 
of  Israel  who  are  to  witness  the  trial  and  abide  the  judg- 
ment pronounced  from  heaven. 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  trial,  directing  our  attention, 
particularly,  to  the  point  that  was  in  dispute  ;  the  method 
agreed  upon  for  conducting  the  trial  ;  the  process  of  con- 
ducting it;  and  the  judgment  obtained,  with  its  effect 
upon  Israel. 

I.  The  point  that  was  to  enter  into  trial,  and  on  which 
the  issue  rested,  was  stated  by  Elijah  at  the  opening, 
when  before  the  people  he  entered  his  complaint,  (v.  21.) 
"  And  Elijah  came  unto  all  the  people."  With  slow  and 
dignified  step,  his  flowing  mantle  about  him,  the  prophet 
leaves  his  station  near  the  king,  and  advances  towards  the 
multitudes  of  Israel,  that  his  voice  may  be  more  clearly 
heard  by  alV  the  parties,  (v.  21.)  "And  he  said, — How 
long  halt  ye  between  two  opinions?  If  Jehovah  be  God, 
follow  him :  but  if  Baal,  then  follow  him."  He  com- 
plains of  their  halting,  like  a  lame  person,  from  side  to 
side,  between  Jehovah  and  Baal;  as  if  it  were  a  matter 
of  indifference  which  they  followed  as  their  leader ;  as  if 
they  might  manage  to  keep  in  favor  with  both  and  offend 
neither.  He  asks  them  how  long  they  will  allow  them- 
selves to  continue,  as  they  have  done  in  their  past  history, 
to  keep  wavering  and  fluctuating  between  two  opinions 
so  utterly  at  variance,  as  whether  the  God  they  ought  to 
worship  is  Jehovah  or  Baal  :  and  he  proposes  that,  now, 
in  presence  of  the  advocates  of  both  deities,  they  bring 
this  question  to  a  decided  issue, — whether  they  will 
choose,  as  their  God,  Jehovah  only  and  forever,  following 
him  with  all  the  heart  in  their  worship,  conduct  and 
hopes ;  or  whether,  forsaking  him,  they  will  take  Baal, 
and  Baal  only,  and  transfer  all  their  interest  and  hopes 
forever  to  his  care. 

The  question  turns  on  the  truth  and  righteousness  of 
the  claims  of  Jehovah  or  Baal :  whether  the  self-existent 
and  eternal  Jehovah,  who  brought  their  fathers  out  of 
Egypt  through  the  hand  of  Moses,  with  tokens  of  Al- 


302  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 


mighty  power,  and  established  them  on  their  land,  should 
be  acknowledged  as  their  God :  or  Baal,  the  great  heav- 
enly luminary,  the  sun,  whom  the  surrounding  nations  at 
that  period,  Phoenicia,  Chaldea  and  Moab,  worshipped  as 
the  generative  principle  of  life.  Whether  they  should 
follow  Jehovah,  in  the  rites  of  worship  and  the  com- 
mandments he  had  given  through  Moses,  or  follow  Baal, 
after  the  custom  of  the  nations,  in  the  impurity  practised 
in  the  groves,  and  the  cruelty  of  sacrificing  their  children 
in  the  fires. 

This  question  was  calmly  proposed  and  submitted  by 
this  solitary  prophet  of  Jehovah,  in  presence  of  the 
numerous  prophets  of  Baal,  who  felt  themselves  strong 
in  the  royal  patronage  of  the  queen,  their  fellow-country- 
woman and  foster-mother,  and  strong  in  the  countenance 
of  Ahab  and  the  people,  whom  they  had  flattered  in  their 
sins  and  led  away  from  the  pure  service  of  Jehovah. 
Yet,  opposed  by  such  fearful  human  odds,  Elijah  that  day 
felt  strong  in  the  truth  and  righteousness  of  his  cause, 
and  in  the  presence  and  power  of  the  living  God. 

The  question  now  submitted  to  the  people,  was  received 
by  them  in  silence,  (v.  21.)  "  And  the  people  answered 
him  not  a  word."  This  was  one  point  gained,  to  have 
the  people  receive  a  question,  which  so  much  reflected  on 
themselves,  with  silent  acquiescence,  as  if  willing  to  hear 
the  cause  and  abide  the  issue. 

II.  The  prophet  next  proposes  to  Israel  a  method  of 
trying  in  their  presence  the  cause  of  these  conflicting 
deities,  and  obtaining  a  decisive  judgment  on  their  oppos- 
ing claims :  and  this  method  is,  to  test  the  ability  of  each 
to  answer  the  prayer  of  his  servants,  (v.  22—24.)  "  Then 
said  Elijah  unto  the  people,  I,  even  I  only,  remain  a 
prophet  of  Jehovah  :  but  Baal's  prophets  are  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  men.  Let  them  therefore  give  us  two  bul- 
locks:  and  let  them  choose  one  bullock  for  themselves, 
and  cut  it  in  pieces,  and  lay  it  on  wood,  and  put  no  fire 
under  :  and  I  will  dress  the  other  bullock,  and  lay  it  on 
wood,  and  put  no  fire  under :  and  call  ye  on  the  name  of 
your  gods,  and  I  will  call  on  the  name  of  Jehovah  ;  and 
the  God  that  answereth  by  fire,  let  him  be  God.'* 


Tried  before  Israel  on  Carmel.  303 


The  method  of  obtaining  judgment  proposed  by  the 
prophet,  is  reasonable  and  fair.  Surely  if  one  deity,  when 
called  upon  by  his  servant  to  prove  his  claims,  shall  send 
down  fire  from  heaven  upon  his  own  sacrifice,  and  the 
other  shall  not,  then  it  will  appear  which  one  is  the  true 
God  ;  with  which  one  is  lodged  the  treasury  of  all  power  ; 
which  one  can  defend  his  own  honor,  and  hear  and  bless 
his  servants ;  and  which  one,  being  inattentive  to  both,  is 
feeble  and  false,  and  altogether  unworthy  of  worship  and 
confidence.  In  regard  to  the  sacrifices,  too,  all  the  favor 
asked  by  Elijah  is,  that,  as  he  is  alone,  poor  and  without 
human  patronage,  and  the  prophets  of  Baal  are  many 
and  enjoy  the  patronage  of  royal  wealth,  the  latter  should 
be  at  the  expense  of  furnishing  the  victims:  while  to 
them  he  would  grant  the  choice  of  their  own  victim,  and 
the  opportunity  of  sacrificing  first,  with  all  the  advantage 
they  might  hope  to  derive  from  the  length  of  time  in 
their  favor. 

In  proposing  this  method  of  trial  at  the  altar,  the 
prophet  stood  committed  for  the  honor  of  his  God  before 
the  people,  if  they  accept  his  offer.  But  he  has,  as  ap- 
pears afterwards  from  his  prayer,  an  order  from  Jehovah, 
and  he  has  sufficient  faith  in  his  wonder-working  pres- 
ence, to  warrant  him  to  risk  all  on  the  result.  In  the  case 
of  ordinary  men,  however,  not  endowed  with  prophetic 
gifts  or  favored  with  immediate  revelations  from  heaven, 
the  example  cannot  be  pleaded  as  a  warrant  or  permission 
even,  to  try  the  Lord  by  appeals  to  him  for  miraculous 
interposition.  He  will  be  tried  and  proved  by  the  suppli- 
cations of  his  people  at  large,  only  in  reference  to  the 
promises  he  has  made,  and  those  ordinary  works  of  his 
providence  and  grace  by  which  he  accomplishes  them. 

But  here  now  is  a  prophet  standing  before  Israel,  di- 
rected of  Jehovah,  strong  in  the  faith  of  his  wonder- 
working presence,  desiring  to  call  back  the  descendants 
of  Israel  to  him,  the  God  of  their  fathers  ;  and  before  all, 
he  puts  at  issue  the  question  between  the  claims  of 
Jehovah  and  Baal,  on  the  judgment  to  be  declared  by  fire 


304  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 

from  heaven,  in  answer  to  prayer  which  each  party  is  to 
offer  at  the  altar  of  sacrifice. 

The  method  of  trial  proposed  to  the  people,  met  their 
approbation  :  as  it  is  said,  (v.  24.)  "  And  all  the  people 
answered  and  said,  it  is  well  spoken."  Surely,  if  the 
prophet  of  Jehovah  objects  not  to  make  this  trial  of  his 
God,  it  becomes  the  people  to  abide  the  issue,  nor  suffer 
the  prophets  of  Baal  to  withdraw  from  the  contest  by 
refusing  the  challenge. 

The  method  of  conducting  it  being  settled,  the  process 
of  trial  now  ensues.  Elijah,  sustained  by  the  voice  of 
the  whole  people,  turns  to  the  prophets  of  Baal,  and  calls 
upon  them  to  take  their  part  in  the  trial  first,  (v.  25.) 
"  And  Elijah  said  unto  the  prophets  of  Baal,  choose  you 
one  bullock  for  yourselves  and  dress  it  first :  for  ye  are 
many  ;  and  call  on  the  name  of  your  gods,  but  put  no  fire 
under."  This  direction  was  in  accordance  with  the  pro- 
posal which  the  people  had  accepted ;  and  gave  full  scope 
for  the  many  priests  of  Baal,  by  beginning  with  the  day, 
to  consume  what  time  might  be  necessary  to  a  thorough 
and  satisfactory  trial.  However  much  they  may  have 
hated  the  situation  in  which  they  were  now  placed,  yet 
as  they  were  bound  and  held  by  the  voice  of  all  Israel, 
they  could  not  refuse  to  enter  upon  the  trial  of  their 
cause,  without  giving  it  up  at  once  as  defenseless,  and 
bringing  down  the  rage  of  the  people  upon  themselves,  as 
deceivers  and  the  authors,  as  Elijah  claimed,  of  the  calam- 
ities that  had  come  upon  Israel. 

Accordingly,  they  take  upon  them  the  trial  of  the  cause 
of  Baal,  after  this  sort.  (v.  26.)  "  And  they  took  the  bul- 
lock which  was  given  them," — i.  e.  either  furnished  by  the 
people  without  their  expense,  or  the  one  which  the  judges 
among  them  had  selected  and  brought  to  their  body— 
"  and  they  dressed  it,  and  called  on  the  name  of  Baal, 
from  morning  even  until  noon,  saying,  O  Baal,  Hear  us." 

For  four  hours  or  more,  the  people  of  Israel  stand 
in  the  scorching  rays  of  a  sirmmer  sun,  that  is  burning 
the  world  with  drouth,  and  hear  four  hundred  and 
fifty  prophets  of  Baal  vociferate,  in  a  horrid  jargon, 


Tried  before  Israel  on  Carinel.  305 


the  vain  repetition,  "  O  Baal,  hear  us,  O  Baal,  hear 
us  !  "  What  think  they,  at  this  time  of  high  noon,  of  Baal  ? 
What  mercy  has  he  on  his  worshipers ;  what  regard  to 
his  own  honor  ;  what  care  of  his  public  servants ;  what 
ears  to  hear,  or  heart  to  feel :  that  he  will  allow  all  his 
prophets  to  unite  so  long  in  calling  on  his  name,  in  vain  ? 
They  shout ;  they  cry  ;  (v.  26.)  "  but,"  says  the  account, 
"  there  was  no  voice,  nor  any  that  answered." 

Failing  of  success,  as  noon  arrives  they  grow  more 
furious  and  frantic.  "  And,"  the  history  proceeds,  (v.  26,) 
"  they  leaped  upon  the  altar  which  was  made."  How  lit- 
tle respect  to  their  god  and  his  altar  have  they,  thus  to  leap 
up,  and  trample  upon  the  unburnt  sacrifice !  No  doubt, 
at  this  hour  of  trial,  the  sight  of  their  own  victim  was  a 
torment.  No  doubt  they  wished  in  their  hearts  to  tram- 
ple both  the  victim  and  altar  into  the  dust,  that  both  might 
disappear  from  the  sight  of  the  waiting  people :  but  they 
only  set  forth  themselves  as  frantic  madmen,  who  in  vain 
kindle  up  the  fires  of  passion  in  their  own  hearts,  to 
deceive  a  people  waiting  to  see  a  material  flame  descend 
from  heaven  to  burn  up  the  victim. 

But  these  prophets  have  already  consumed  much  time, 
and  the  prophet  Elijah,  now  that  their  fury  is  at  its  height, 
as  if  desirous  to  hasten  the  process  and  relieve  the  waiting 
people,  suggests  some  reasons  why,  perhaps,  their  god 
does  not  hear  them  :  reasons  which,  though  they  burn 
and  scathe  the  false  prophets  and  their  god,  may  open 
the  eyes  of  Israel  to  the  folly  of  heeding  such  delusions. 
For  sarcasm,  like  the  lancet,  proves  a  salutary  instrument, 
when  it  saves  the  whole  body,  at  the  expense  only  of  a 
deadly  fungus  fastened  on  its  life.  (v.  27.)  "  And  it 
came  to  pass  at  noon,  that  Elijah  mocked  them,  and  said  : 
cry  aloud :  for  he  is  a  god," — i.  e.,  you  say  he  is — "either 
he  is  talking,  or  he  is  pursuing,  or  he  is  on  a  journey,  or 
peradventure  he  sleepeth  and  must  be  awaked." 

Israel,  I  imagine,  who  had  been  taught,  through  Moses, 
ideas,  which  could  not  have  been  wholly  effaced,  of  a  God 
who  made  heaven  and  earth  ;  who  is  ever  present  in  all 
his  works  and  with  all  his  creatures  ;  and  who  never 

40 


306  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 

slumbereth  ;  Israel  must  have  seen  the  ridiculous  folly  of 
these  priests,  in  the  dilemma  to  which  they  were  now 
brought  by  the  opposing  prophet  of  Jehovah.  For  their 
Baal  either  will  not  or  cannot  hear.  If  he  will  not,  at  a 
time  when  his  honor  and  service  are  all  at  stake,  and  are 
now  become  the  ridicule  of  the  opposing  party,  surely  he 
can  claim  no  more  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the 
people.  If  he  cannot ;  if  he  is  prevented,  as  men  often 
are,  by  previous  engagement  in  conversation  or  amuse- 
ment in  the  chase,  or  by  absence  on  journeys,  or  by  sleep,— 
is  it  not  ridiculous  to  be  waiting  in  vain  at  his  doors  with 
petitions  and  wants,  to  which  the  people  can  as  well 
attend  themselves  ? 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  these  prophets,  unan- 
swered by  their  deity,  must  have  given  up  the  trial  of 
their  cause  at  this  time  as  utterly  hopeless,  when  they 
saw  both  their  god  and  themselves  become  the  ridicule 
of  the  whole  assembled  multitude. 

But  the  maddened  and  phrenzied  worshipers  of  false 
gods,  usually  attempt  to  make  themselves  objects  of 
compassion  by  self-inflicted  cruelties ;  as  if,  knowing 
themselves  to  be  astray,  they  would  punish  themselves 
enough  to  purchase  of  others  sympathy  and  impunity  in 
their  sins.  This  device  was  still  left  as  a  last  resort.  So 
these  prophets,  in  their  straits,  now  strive  to  turn  the  tide 
of  ridicule,  by  attempting  to  arouse  sympathy  and  com- 
passion, (v.  28.)  "  And  they  cried  aloud  and  cut  them- 
selves, after  their  manner,  with  knives  and  lancets,  till  the 
blood  gushed  out  upon  them."  But  these  appeals  to 
compassion  cannot  turn  away  the  thoughts  of  the  people 
from  waiting  for  the  approving  signal  from  heaven :  and 
so,  as  they  gash  their  bleeding  persons,  they  seem  as  if 
only  anticipating  the  pains  and  penalties  of  defeat,  and 
as  having  begun  with  their  own  hands  the  work  of  their 
execution  and  death. 

But  to  give  them  every  advantage,  the  prophet  Elijah 
still  longer  delays  to  enter  upon  the  trial  of  the  cause 
of  Jehovah  ;  and  the  prophets  of  Baal,  as  if  to  continue  a 
folly  they  know  not  how  to  cease,  and  render  them- 


Tried  before  Israel  on  Carmcl.  307 


selves  still  more  ridiculous,  continue  their  vain  incan- 
tations till  the  time  of  evening-  sacrifice.  But  it  was  car- 
ried to  that  length  and  satiety,  that  not  only  their  god 
would  not  answer,  but  even  their  fellow-men  would  not 
regard  them  any  more  :  as  the  history  states,  (v.  29.)  "  And 
it  came  to  pass,  when  mid-day  was  past,  and  they  prophe- 
sied until  the  time  of  the  evening  sacrifice,  that  there  was 
neither  voice,  nor  any  to  answer,  nor  any  that  regarded." 
No  voice  nor  answer  from  above,  as  was  before  stated, 
nor,  as  is  now  added,  any  that  give  their  attention  more 
in  the  assembly  of  Israel. 

The  time  was  now  come  for  Elijah  to  try  the  cause  of 
Jehovah  ;  for  the  people,  disgusted  with  the  false  prophets, 
were  ready  to  give  their  undivided  attention  to  his  offer- 
ing, nor  suffer,  as  at  an  earlier  hour  they  might  have  done, 
the  false  prophets  to  seize  some  portion  of  the  fire  as  it 
fell,  and  claim  it  as  their  own.  (v.  30.)  "  And  Elijah  said 
unto  all  the  people,  come  near  unto  me.  And  all  the 
people  came  near  unto  him.  And  he  repaired  the  altar  of 
Jehovah  that  was  broken  down."  That  broken  and  neg- 
lected altar,  which  once  was  honored  with  the  service  of 
Jehovah,  was  now  again  to  be  consecrated  to  his  service, 
and  honored  by  the  tokens  of  his  presence.  But  that 
was  not  the  altar  he  was  to  take  for  the  trial.  He  builds 
another  for  the  purpose,  (v.  30.)  "  And  Elijah  took  twelve 
stones,  according  to  the  number  of  the  tribes  of  the  sons 
of  Jacob,  unto  whom  the  word  of  Jehovah  came,  saying, 
Israel  shall  be  thy  name.  And  with  the  stones  he  built 
an  altar  in  the  name  of  Jehovah."  An  impressive  lesson 
to  those  sons  of  Israel  who  are  thronging  around  the 
prophet:  to  remind  them  of  that  patriarch  head,  who 
was  blessed  by  Jehovah,  and  by  the  wrestling  angel 
named  Israel  or  'power  with  God/  and  to  set  before  them 
the  obligation  of  their  being  unitedly  consecrated  to  the 
service  of  Jehovah,  Jacob's  God.  To  render  the  trial 
beyond  the  power  of  any  deception,  as  to  fire,  and  make 
more  signal  the  interposition  of  Jehovah,  he  takes  the 
following  measure  of  precaution,  (v.  32.)  "  And  he  made 
a  trench  about  the  altar  as  great  as  would  contain  two 


308  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 


measures  of  seed  ;"  i.  e.,  the  superficial  extent  of  which 
would  require,  if  strewed  with  seed  for  planting,  two 
seahs  or  third  parts  of  an  ephah,  equal  to  more  than  a 
half  bushel  of  our  measure:  a  very  broad  trench  around 
the  four  sides  of  the  altar,  (v.  33.)  "  And  he  put  the 
wood  in  order,  and  cut  the  bullock  in  pieces,  and  laid  him 
on  the  wood  and  said,  Fill  four  barrels  with  water,  and 
pour  it  on  the  burnt  sacrifice  and  on  the  wood."  The 
\vater,  it  may  be  remarked,  might  have  been  taken  from 
the  brook  Kishon,  which  flowed  at  the  base  of  Carmel, 
and  which,  fed  by  the  springs  of  this  mountain  range,  had 
not  yet  wholly  ceased  to  flow,  after  the  long  drought. 
(v.  34,  35.)  "  And  he  said,  Do  it  the  second  time.  And 
they  did  it  the  second  time.  And  he  said,  Do  it  the  third 
time.  And  they  did  it  the  third  time.  And  the  water 
ran  round  about  the  altar.  And  he  filled  the  trench  also 
with  water."  Twelve  barrels  of  water  were  thus  taken 
to  the  altar  by  these  descendants  of  Israel,  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  prophet,  to  make  sure  and  signal  the  inter- 
position of  Jehovah,  the  God  whom  Jacob  worshipped. 

The  time  had  now  come  for  Elijah  to  call  on  Jehovah, 
to  defend  his  own  glory  and  cause,  by  sending  down  fire 
to  consume  the  sacrifice,  (v.  36.)  "  And  it  came  to  pass, 
at  the  time  of  the  offering  of  the  evening  sacrifice,  that 
Elijah,  the  prophet,  came  near  and  said."  He  drew  nigh 
the  altar,  all  Israel  intent  to  hear  and  witness.  The 
prophets  of  Baal  were  silent,  (or,  if  continuing  their 
incantations,  by  their  hoarse  and  faint  murmurings  adding 
only  to  the  dignity  of  the  prophet)  and,  in  a  calm,  rational, 
confident  manner,  he  addressed  this  prayer — a  model  of 
faith  and  devotedness — to  the  God  whom  he  worships. 
(v.  36,  37.)  "  Jehovah,  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  of  Israel, 
let  it  be  known  this  day  that  thou  art  God  in  Israel,  and 
that  I  am  thy  servant,  and  that  I  have  done  all  these  things 
at  thy  word.  Hear  me,  Jehovah,  hear  me,  that  this  people 
may  know  that  thou,  Jehovah,  art  God,  and  that  thou 
hast  turned  their  heart  back  again."  He  appeals  to  his 
God,  as  Jehovah,  the  Being  of  infinite  perfection  ;  the  God 
who,  by  his  promises  and  faithfulness  in  the  past  to  Abra- 


Tried  before  Israel  on  Cannel.  309 


ham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  stands  engaged  to  uphold  his  cause 
in  every  age ;  he  pleads  with  him  to  grant  the  decisive 
token  of  the  fire,  for  the  sake  of  upholding  his  own  honor 
and  service  in  Israel.  The  prophet,  in  his  plea,  would 
merge  himself  and  all  the  surrounding  people  of  Israel, 
as  mere  subordinates,  that  Jehovah  would  put  honor  on 
his  own  name  and  service,  by  upholding  his  cause  in  the 
hands  of  his  prophet,  and  causing  Israel  to  turn  back  in 
their  hearts  from  the  service  of  Baal,  with  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  newly  manifested  glory  and  claims. 

In  this  signal  prayer, — full  of  faith  in  God,  and  breath- 
ing a  pure  desire  for  his  glory, — the  prophet  has  touched 
the  heart  of  the  self-existent  One ;  he  has  set  in  motion 
that  living  energy,  that  originates,  upholds,  and  sways  at 
will,  all  power  and  might  within  this  vast  creation. 

The  prayer  is  uttered.  The  prophet  is  silent.  All 
Israel  expectant,  await  the  signal.  The  prophets  of  Baal,— 
dusty,  bleeding,  ashamed  and  forgotten, — are  looking  from 
their  disfigured  altar  and  victim  askance  toward  the  altar 
of  Elijah.  Ahab  trembles  lest  the  poise  should  turn,  to 
sink  his  flatterers  and  elevate  his  faithful  reprover.  When 
lo !  judgment  is  declared  ;  the  contest  is  decided  ;  Jeho- 
vah and  his  prophet  are  victorious ! 

(v.  38.)  "  Then  the  fire  of  Jehovah  fell,  and  consumed 
the  burnt  sacrifice,  and  the  wood,  and  the  stones,  and  the 
dust,  and  licked  up  the  water  that  was  in  the  trench." 
What  signal  power,  that  consumes  not  only  the  wood  and 
victim,  but  every  vestige  and  memorial  of  those  who 
would  call  in  question  the  power  and  majesty  of  Jehovah  ! 

The  effects  of  this  declaration  of  judgment  are  seen,  in 
the  immediate  decision  of  Israel  to  take  Jehovah  as  their 
God,  and  in  their  fulfilling,  at  the  command  of  the  prophet, 
the  trying  duty,  required  in  the  law  given  to  them  through 
Moses,  of  executing  the  false  prophets.  Israel  are  moved 
to  declare  for  Jehovah,  (v.  39.)  "  And  when  all  the  people 
saw  it,  they  fell  on  their  faces  :  and  they  said,  Jehovah, 
he  is  the  God  ;  Jehovah,  he  is  the  God."  Bowed  down 
to  the  earth  in  fear  and  reverence,  all  acknowledge  that 
he  is  the  God  who  upholds  his  cause  in  the  earth,  who 


310  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 


has  power  to  reward  his  servants  and  punish  his  enemies : 
that  he,  and  not  Baal,  is  the  God  they  must  henceforth 
follow.  The  whole  assembly  of  Israel  are  thus  swayed 
back  from  Baal  to  Jehovah,  and  with  loud  voice  declare 
that  they  will  follow  him  as  their  God.  But  they  have 
taken  their  vow  ;  and  now  a  trying  duty  meets  them,  at 
once  to  test  their  adhesion  and  loyalty.  For,  according 
to  the  national  law  that  Jehovah  had  given  them  through 
Moses,*  "  the  prophet  or  prophets  that  shall  speak  to  Israel 
in  the  name  of  other  gods,  to  turn  them  away  from  Jehovah 
their  God,  must  be  put  to  death."  To  the  execution  of 
this  trying  duty,  the  prophet  now  calls  them.  (v.  40.) 
"  And  Elijah  said  unto  them,  take  the  prophets  of  Baal: 
let  not  one  of  them  escape.  And  they  took  them  :  and 
Elijah  brought  them  doXvn  to  the  brook  Kishon,  and  slew 
them  there."  Thus  they,  who  had  led  off  Ahab  and  Israel 
into  open  idolatry  and  sin,  and  had  provoked  the  ven- 
geance of  Jehovah  against  his  people,  to  smite  them  with 
drought  and  famine,  were  effectually  put  to  silence.  They 
should  never  more  lift  up  their  voice  to  cause  Israel  to 
offend,  neither  should  their  blood,  soon  to  be  washed 
away,  with  their  rolling  bodies,  by  the  swelling  torrents 
of  Kishon  into  the  sea,  be  allowed  to  pollute  the  land  of 
Jehovah. 

And  now  is  the  hour  of  mercy  and  relief  to  suffering 
Israel,  who  have  vowed  unto  the  Lord  and  begun  obedi- 
ence to  his  law.  The  prophet,  who  had  once  retired  from 
the  land  announcing  the  judgment  of  drought,  and  had 
now  come  with  the  promise  of  mercy  ;  and  who,  having 
this  power  with  God  in  his  hands,  had  authority  with  the 
king  and  all  Israel  to  assemble  them  to  this  trial :  having 
succeeded  to  gain  over  the  heart  of  Israel,  and  silence 
the  prophets  of  Baal,  now  announces  good  tidings.  He 
bids  the  king  refresh  himself  unsparingly  :  for  there  is  a 
sound  of  abundance  of  rain,  that  is  to  remove  the  stints 
of  famine.  He  gets  him  to  the  top  of  Carmel,  and  bends 
in  silent  prayer.  He  sets  his  servant  to  watch  the  west- 
ern sea.  Again  and  again  the  servant  passes  from  his 

*  Deut.  xiii  :  i,  2,  5  :  xviii :  20. 


Tried  before  Israel  on  Carmel.  3 1 1 


post  of  observation  to  the  prophet  with  no  tidings.  At 
the  seventh  time,  he  announces  a  cloud  arising  from  the 
sea,  to  appearance  of  the  size  of  a  man's  hand.  He  sends 
the  servant  forthwith  to  bid  Ahab  prepare  his  chariot 
and  descend  from  the  mountain  with  the  people,  before 
overtaken  and  stopped  by  the  swelling  mountain  torrents. 
The  cloud  expands  in  every  direction ;  it  grows  dark 
with  its  stores  of  winds  and  waters:  and  when  Ahab  and 
the  people  and  the  hurrying  prophet  have  found  shelter 
in  the  city  of  Jezreel,  it  pours  its  reviving  floods  over  the 
parched  earth,  and  causes  joy  to  the  thousands  of  fam- 
ished Israel. 

Such  is  the  history,  as  briefly  as  I  could  present  it  with 
justice,  of  a  memorable  day  in  Israel,  on  which  Jehovah 
allowed  Elijah  his  prophet,  whom  he  had  sent  to  them 
with  a  promise  of  relief,  to  institute,  as  preparatory  to 
that  mercy,  a  public  trial  of  his  cause,  now  come  into  con- 
flict with  Baal,  against  that  of  the  idol :  in  order  that,  to 
all  the  demonstrations  of  his  power  and  goodness  in  the 
past,  which  had  now  become  fruitless  in  the  presence  of 
these  servants  of  Baal,  he  might  add  new  evidences, 
to  regain  the  hearts  of  Israel,  and  to  silence  their  troublers  ; 
and  thus  be  acknowledged  in  his  judgments  and  mercies, 
as  the  God  in  whom  Israel  should  trust,  and  whom  alone 
they  should  serve. 

Among  the  lessons  to  be  derived  from  the  proceedings 
of  that  memorable  day,  I  will  mention  the  following : 

i.  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Israel,  proved  himself,  on  that 
day,  to  be  the  only  God  that  is  worthy  to  command  the 
homage  and  service  of  our  race.  He  is  the  one,  who 
spake  to  the  patriarchs ;  who  gave  laws  and  command- 
ments to  Israel  through  Moses ;  who  brought  into  that 
nation  his  only  Son,  and  through  him  caused  the  word  of 
repentance  and  forgiveness  to  be  published  to  the  nations, 
preparatory  to  a  day  appointed,  in  which  he  will  judge 
the  world  in  righteousness ;  who,  in  that  long  series  of 
his  dealings  with  Abraham  and  his  seed,  from  the  call  of 
Abraham  to  the  close  of  the  mission  of  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles, caused  this  word  to  be  prepared  and  published,  as  his 


312  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 


book  of  instruction,  to  guide  all  the  nations  to  the  knowl- 
edge and  acknowledgment  of  his  glory  and  his  claims. 
He,  on  that  day  when  his  claims  came  into  contest  with 
Baal,  the  god  of  surrounding  nations,  came  forth  from  the 
hidings  of  his  power,  at  the  call  of  his  faithful  servant : 
and,  from  the  secret  store  of  his  treasures,  poured  forth 
from  heaven  the  fires  that  swept  from  earth  the  victim, 
the  wood,  and  the  very  altar  itself  of  the  sacrifice  that 
called  in  question  his  power.  On  that  day,  when  the 
question  was  tried,  whether  he  or  Baal,  whether  he  or 
any  opposing  deity,  was  to  have  the  preference,  he 
showed  himself  the  living  and  true  God  ;  who  has  control 
over  the  powers  of  nature  and  the  course  of  events  in  the 
creation,  who  had  withheld  the  rain  as  a  judgment,  and 
granted  it  again  as  a  mercy,  upon  Israel.  He,  the  ever- 
living  God,  remaineth  the  same  in  all  generations  ;  hold- 
ing in  his  hands  the  resources  of  everlasting  strength  :  to 
maintain  the  worship  and  service  he  inculcates  in  this 
book,  and  to  fulfill  all  its  promises  and  threatenings. 
Jehovah,  made  manifest  by  signs  in  Israel,  made  manifest 
in  the  flesh  in  Jesus  Christ — Jehovah,  the  author  of  the 
Bible,  then  claims  our  faith  and  obedience,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  all  others.  On  the  heights  of  Carmel,  he  showed 
himself  strong  to  defend  his  cause,  and  to  put  to  silence 
all  his  adversaries.  Let  us  hear"  the  lesson,  which  for  all 
ages  he  inculcated  that  day  ;  that  none  can  contend  with 
Jehovah  and  prevail :  that  none  can  forsake  his  worship 
and  service,  without  rushing  on  his  judgment :  and  that 
none  should  experience  his  mercies,  without  turning  back 
to  him  in  their  hearts.  Let  us  then,  in  imitation  of  Israel 
that  day,  turn  to  Jehovah,  before  all  the  accumulated 
testimonies  of  his  power  and  faithfulness,  with  reverence, 
exclaiming  from  the  heart:  'Jehovah,  he  is  the  God  in 
whom  we  will  trust,  he  is  the  God  whom  we  will  obey  : 
so  shall  we  triumph  in  his  strength,  and  be  refreshed  with 
his  mercies.' 

2.  Another  lesson  inculcated  in  the  trial  on  Carmel,  is 
that  of  the  essential  difference  between  the  worshipers 
engaged  in  a  false,  and  in  the  true  religion.  We  see  this 


Tried  before  Israel  on  Carmel.  3  1 3 


difference  strikingly  exemplified  in  the.  prophets  of  Baal 
and  the  prophet  of  Jehovah,  as  they  were  tested  in  this 
trial  in  regard  to  their  worship.  A  false  religion  has  not 
the  support  of  truth  ;  its  votaries  are  astray  from  the  only 
true  God  ;  they  act  as  before  the  people,  rather  than  as 
before  a  deity  ;  they  seek  their  own  honor  and  emolument, 
at  the  expense  of  sin  in  the  people  ;  and,  when  put  to  the 
test  as  to  their  religion,  they  rest  not  in  the  truth  of  their 
cause,  but  on  working  their  own  passions  into  frantic 
madness  to  affect  the  people,  on  loud  vociferations,  un- 
meaning repetitions,  or  extravagant  actions,  to  absorb  at- 
tention ;  or  in  cruel  woundings  and  penances  of  the  flesh, 
to  excite  compassion :  and  all,  as  a  vain  substitute  and 
show  of  religion,  while  astray  from  the  only  true  God, 
and  while  given  to  the  sins  and  lusts  that  fill  the  world 
with  unrighteousness  and  woes.  Such  were  the  prophets 
of  Baal  in  their  worship;  such  are  all  the  idolaters,  who 
have  ever  established  a  religion  and  service  of  idolatry 
in  the  earth  ;  and  such  too  are  they  who,  creeping  with 
their  idolatries  into  the  service  of  Jehovah,  have  dared 
to  set  up  idols  in  his  sanctuary.  They  have  all  imitated 
these  practices  of  Baal's  prophets  on  Carmel ;  substitu- 
ting for  knowledge,  truth,  and  the  pure  desires  of  piety 
and  benevolence,  their  public  shows  before  the  people, 
their  ridiculous  ceremonies,  their  extravagances  and  pen- 
ances, their  indulgences  of  the  people  in  sins  for  gain  and 
emolument.  How  different  Elijah,  the  prophet  of  the 
living  God  !  He  is  calm  and  dignified,  reposing  on  the 
truth  and  justice  of  his  cause.  He  calls  on  God  in  a 
rational  manner,  as  a  being  who  has  power  to  hear,  and 
who  has  made  promises  in  the  past,  to  uphold  the  faith  of 
his  people.  With  a  pure  and  firm  purpose,  to  consult  the 
honor  of  Jehovah,  and  the  advancement  of  his  cause,  both 
in  himself  and  in  Israel,  he  makes  that  his  plea,  with 
earnestness  and  simplicity,  and  without  repetition.  He 
is  calm  in  his  feelings  ;  putting  his  unshaken  trust  in  Jeho- 
vah, to  whom  he  breathes  the  sincere  desire  of  his  heart 
that  he  will  hear  his  prayer  and  fulfill  his  request.  This 
is  accordant  with  a  heart  of  firm  faith  and  pure  obedience, 


314  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 


that  brings  honor  ijpon  God  in  presence  of  the  multitudes, 
and  gains  from  him  audience  and  favor  at  the  altar  of 
devotion. 

Let  then  this  striking  example  be  a  test  to  us,  whether 
we  are  in  error  or  in  the  truth,  in  respect  to  practical 
religion.  Let  us  ask  ourselves,  whether  in  religion  we 
set  up  ourselves  and  our  interests  before  the  people  as 
supreme,  or  whether  we  merge  our  persons,  our  interests 
and  our  all,  in  the  honor  of  God  and  the  advancement  of 
his  cause. 

3.  Another  lesson  taught  us  at  the  trial  on  Carmel,  is 
the  power  which  may  be  employed  by  an  individual  child 
of  God  to  advance  his  cause  in  the  earth.  Elijah  stood 
that  day  on  Carmel  as  a  solitary  servant  of  God.  Against 
him  were  arrayed  the  four  hundred  and  fifty  prophets  of 
Baal ;  the  king  of  Israel,  their  protector  and  friend  ;  and  the 
whole  multitudes  of  Israel,  committed  to  these  idolaters  by 
their  compliances.  What  had  he  to  rest  upon,  that  he 
should  attempt  to  uphold  and  advance  the  cause  of  his  God 
against  this  overwhelming  torrent  of  idolatry  ?  First,  he 
had  faith  in  God,  as  a  Being  of  infinite  and  unchanging 
power,  who  had  begun  a  plan  of  grace  in  our  world  which, 
by  promises  irrevocably  spoken,  he  had  pledged  himself 
to  carry  forward  in  every  age.  And  before  that  God,  in 
whose  breast  were  locked  up  the  secrets  of  the  future, 
and  with  whom  were  the  issues  of  all  power  in  the  crea- 
tion, he  felt  that  he  might  come  nigh  to  plead  and  pre- 
vail. Though  the  past  was  now  unalterable ;  though  the 
present  was  dark  and  discouraging;  yet  on  the  future, 
that  lay  concealed  with  God,  he  looked  with  faith  and 
hope,  as  open  at  his  almighty  bidding  to  immediate  issues 
of  good.  Next,  he  was  furnished  with  a  powerful  plea 
that  he  could  present  to  Jehovah.  He  was  an  obedient 
friend  to  his  cause.  He  desired  to  have  Jehovah  honored 
in  him  and  through  him  as  a  servant,  and  honored  before 
Israel,  and  by  Israel  as  his  people.  He  bore  in  his  heart 
this  pure  desire  to  merge  himself  and  his  surrounding 
fellow-creatures  in  the  cause  and  honor  of  Jehovah, 
which  cause  and  honor  carry  with  them  the  blessedness 


Tried  before  Israel  on  CarmeL  3 1 5 


of  God,  and  the  highest  good  of  his  vast  kingdom  to 
eternity.  He  was  thus  furnished  with  a  plea  that  does 
not  fail  to  touch  the  heart  of  God.  He  stood  up  as  a  true 
and  devoted  servant  of  his,  breathing  before  others,  in  the 
great  congregation,  the  pure  desire  that  he  would  honor 
himself  while  his  cause  was  in  so  feeble  hands,  and  while 
his  honor  was  concerned  with  so  many  around  ;  and  the 
plea  avails.  So  the  faithful  servant  of  God,  who  labors 
for  his  cause,  whether  in  public  or  in  private,  when  he 
brings  this  pure  plea  before  God,  tries  him  and  proves 
him  on  a  point  nearest  his  heart,  and  will  not  fail  to  have 
audience.  Once  more,  the  prophet  that  day  asked  for  an 
interposition  of  direct  almighty  power  in  the  fall  of  fire 
from  heaven,  that  was  competent  as  a  means  to  give  honor 
to  his  cause,  to  turn  back  the  hearts  of  his  people,  and 
silence  his  foes.  Still  God  has  in  his  hands  the  treasury 
of  almighty  power  :  and  if  he  does  not  now  allow  his  friends 
to  ask  for  direct  miracles  to  be  wrought,  to  sustain  a 
cause  sufficiently  based  on  that  evidence  already,  yet 
he  is  open  still  to  be  tried,  in  all  the  applications  of 
his  almighty  power  in  his  works  of  providence  and  grace. 
Still  he  may  send,  at  the  earnest  request  and  upon  the 
pure  plea  of  any  faithful  servant,  that  providential  dispen- 
sation, and  that  working  of  his  word  and  Holy  Spirit, 
which  will  advance  his  cause  in  the  earth  ;  which  will 
turn  the  hearts  of  men  to  acknowledge  and  serve  the 
Lord,  and  which  will  put  to  silence  his  enemies.  Yes ; 
this  wonder-working  power  in  the  spiritual  world,  like 
the  rod  in  the  hand  of  Moses,  is  in  the  hand  of  that  be- 
lieving and  devoted  child  of  God,  who  breathes,  at  his 
throne  of  grace  and  into  his  ear,  the  pure  and  fervent 
desire,  that  he  would  uphold  and  extend  his  cause  and 
honor  his  name  in  the  earth. 

Let  no  one  then  feel  himself  weak  who  can  in  true  faith 
call  upon  God  for  help.  The  humble  believer,  without 
office  in  the  Church,  unknown  to  fame,  who  in  his  little 
sphere  of  action  seeks  to  honor  God  in  faith  and  obedience, 
can  in  prayer  touch  the  heart  of  God,  in  behalf  not  only 
of  the  immediate  circle  in  which  he  lives  and  moves,  or 


316  The  Cause  of  Jehovah  against  Baal, 


the  Church  with  which  he  is  connected,  but  of  friends,  and 
laborers  for  God  and  souls,  in  any  part  of  this  wide  exten- 
ded globe.     My  brethren,  do  you  know  this  privilege? 
I  fear  we  sometimes  crush  our  spirits,  by  feeling  that  we 
have  some  great  thing  to  do  ourselves  in  order  to  advance 
the  cause  of  our  God,  and  must  do  it  alone.     Look  then 
to  the  privilege  granted  you  in  prayer.     Go,  cast  your 
burden  on  the  Lord,  and  ask  him  to  bring  in  the  aids  of 
his  Spirit  and  might,  to  accomplish  your  desires  for  the 
advancement  of  his  glory  and  kingdom.     Go  to  the  heart 
of  infinite  love.     There  touch  the.  springs  of  all  good  suc- 
cess on  earth.     The  earnest  prayer  of  a  righteous  man 
availeth  much.     Elijah  was  a  man  "  subject  to  like  passions 
as  we  are;"  yet,  at  his  prayer,  the  rain  long  withheld  in 
judgment  from  Israel,  descended  again  to  bless  the  earth. 
Finally :  The  trial  on  Carmel  teaches  us  that  God  will 
put  to  silence  all  the  adversaries  of  his  cause  and  people. 
With   him  is  all  power ;  and,  by  the  tokens  of  his  might, 
he  can  confound  and   put  to  shame  all   his  adversaries. 
He  can  send  down  the  fire  of  his  Spirit,  to  re-consecrate 
his    forsaken    altars,  and    to    regain    the    hearts    of    his 
revolted  people  to  follow  him  and  walk  in  his  precepts, 
and,  by  the  revival  of  his  own  honor  and  cause,  overawe 
and  put  to  silence  all  opposers.     He  can,  in  his  wrath, 
commission  the  sword  to  destroy.     And  by  mercy,  or  by 
wrath,    he    will    silence    all    his    adversaries ;    and    that 
speedily.      The  wicked  man   may   flourish  awhile.      He 
may  set  up  his  cause  and  find  his  patrons,  in  the  earth. 
He  may  flatter  himself  with  his  devices,  and  content  his 
heart  in  his  iniquities.     But  his  day  of  trial  is  coming. 
And  where  then  will  be  the  might  in  which  he  trusts? 
Who  of  all  his  idols  or  friends  will  hear  or  save ;  when 
Jehovah,  that  is   mightier  than  all,   shall  come  forth  to 
execute  judgment?     He  shall  be  taken  away  in  his  iniqui- 
ties.    The  sword  of  the  Lord  shall  devour  him  in  anger. 
And  the  places  that  knew  him  shall  know  him  no  more 
forever. 

My  friends,  hearken  to  the  warning  that  comes  from 
the  heights  of  Carmel  against  espousing  any  cause  op- 


Tried  before  Israel  on  Car  met.  3 1 7 


posed  to  that  of  Jehovah.  The  Bible  represents  on  the 
earth  the  cause  of  Jehovah :  the  book  that  utters  his 
voice  ;  that  speaks  his  will ;  that  breathes  forth  the  prom- 
ises of  his  mercy  and  the  threatenings  of  his  justice,— 
behind  which,  to  guard  and  fulfill,  lie  concealed  awhile 
the  resources  of  that  everlasting  strength,  which  upholds 
and  guides  all  the  movements  of  this  vast  creation.  If,  in 
your  heart  and  life,  you  discard  the  authority  of  this 
book ;  if,  in  your  intercourse  with  others,  you  attempt  to 
put  down  in  their  minds  its  authority  ;  you  engage  in  a 
controversy  with  the  living  Jehovah,  and  must  meet  the 
fate  of  those  who  contended  against  his  authority  in  the 
days  when  he  was  giving  out  these  oracles  with  the  testi- 
monies of  his  miraculous  power.  Act  not  such  a  foolish 
part  on  this  short  stage  of  life,  to  fall  forever  under  con- 
demnation. Imitate  rather  the  good  and  holy  Elijah. 
Take  Jehovah  for  the  God  whom  you  will  only  and  for- 
ever follow.  Seek  and  obey  the  instructions  of  his  "word. 
Maintain  the  honor  of  his  name  and  worship.  And,  with 
faith  and  love  in  your  hearts,  and  in  humble,  earnest  prayer, 
ask  him  to  promote  his  cause  in  your  hands,  and  to  shower 
on  the  parched  world  around,  the  blessings  of  his  grace. 
So  will  you  live  and  die  the  happy  servants  of  God,  the 
honored  benefactors  of  mankind. 


THE  ASCENSION  OF   JESUS. 


MARK  XVI:  19— LUKE  XXIV:  50-53— ACTS  I:  4—14. 

THE  sorrows  of  the  Crucifixion  were  past.  An  interval 
of  forty  days  had  now  elapsed  since  the  joys  of  the  Resur- 
rection. During  this  interval,  Jesus  did  not  lead  about 
the  band  of  his  disciples,  as  their  constant  companion,  as 
he  was  wont  during  the  days  of  his  public  ministry.  He 
appeared  to  them  on  certain  occasions  only  ;  and,  in  some 
instances,  by  express  appointment  of  time  and  place. 
His  personal  appearances  took  place  so  often,  before  so 
many  concurring  witnesses,  in  such  varied  circumstances, 
and  with  such  recollections  of  the  past  in  his  conversa- 
tions, as  to  afford  many  infallible  proofs,  that  this  was 
indeed  Jesus,  alive  again  after  his  passion  by  resurrection 
from  the  dead. 

This  interval  of  forty  days  had  brought  them  now  near 
the  Pentecost — the  fiftieth  day  from  the  second  of  the 
Passover,  called  the  Feast  of  Weeks; — a  feast  day,  on 
which  they  were  to  receive  far  richer  gifts  than  the  first- 
fruits  of  the  wheat  harvest,  which  were  then  wont  to  be 
gathered — on  which  they  were  to  receive  their  first  heav- 
enly gifts  after  the  coronation  of  Jesus,  in  the  descent  of 
the  Spirit  upon  them  at  their  inauguration  into  office, 
the  first  fruits  of  the  great  spiritual  harvests  that  Jesus 
was  to  reap  on  earth  from  his  sufferings. 

At  this  time  of  full  proof  of  his  resurrection  and  of 
near  approach  to  the  festival,  he  convened  them  together 
by  appointment,  and  met  them  in  their  assembly.  "  Being 
assembled  together  with  them,"  is  the  introductory  ac- 
count in  the  Acts,  as  given  in  our  translation.  This 
meeting  took  place  within  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  ;  but  it 


The  Ascension  of  Jesus. 

would  seem  that,  instead  of  being  continued  at  the  place 
of  their  gathering,  he  soon  led  them  to  the  height  of 
Olivet,  and  held  his  conversation  with  them  by  the  way. 
For  Luke,  in  his  Gospel,  says,  that  "  he  led  them  out  as 
far  as  to  Bethany," — out  of  the  city  to  the  borders  of 
Bethany,  on  the  Mount  of  Olives, — implying  that,  having 
assembled  in  the  city,  they  took  this  walk,  before  the  Ascen- 
sion :  and,  in  his  history  of  the  Acts,  he  says,  that,  "  when 
he,"  Jesus  Christ,  "  had  spoken  these  things,  he  was  taken 
up ;"  and  consequently  he  must  have  reached  the  place 
where  he  ascended,  at  the  time  of  closing  the  conversation 
For  Luke  adds,  that,  "  then," — immediately  after  the 
event, — they,  the  disciples,  returned  to  Jerusalem,  from 
the  Mount  of  Olivet. 

Jesus  had  met  them  by  appointment  a  short  time  before 
this  interview,  on  a  mountain  in  Galilee,  not  unlikely  the 
elevated  Tabor,  as  he  was  seen  by  a  few  of  them  a  short 
time  before,  near  the  sea  of  Tiberias:  and  there,  where  his 
glory  had  been  prefigured,  he  then  proclaimed  his 
approaching  elevation  to  all  power  in  heaven  and  on 
earth,  and  commissioned  them  to  preach  the  Gospel  to 
all  nations. 

But  now  is  he  immediately  to  take  possession  of  his 
power.  And  at  Jerusalem  he  meets  them  once  more, 
that  he  may  have  his  final  interview  with  them  on  earth, 
and  give  them  instructions  as  to  their  approaching  inaug- 
uration into  public  office.  He  walks  with  them  through 
the  familiar  scenes  of  his  past  ministry.  He  goes  with 
them  down  the  vale  of  Jehoshaphat,  he  crosses  the  brook 
Kedron,  he  passes  the  garden  of  Gethsemane,  he  ascends 
the  height  of  Olivet  to  make  them  witnesses  of  his  glori- 
ous Ascent  to  the  Throne. 

In  this  conversation  by  the  way,  he  reminded  them,  first 
of  all,  of  what  he  had  said  to  them,  on  that  sad  night  of 
the  Passover,  about  his  Father :  that  the  Father  had  pro- 
mised to  send  down  to  them  the  Holy  Spirit,  when  he 
had  left ;  that  it  was  expedient  for  them  that  he  should 
go  away  ;  that,  by  going  away,  he  should  see  that  the 
Spirit  was  sent  down  ;  and  that  the  arrival  and  presence 
of  this  Comforter  would  more  than  make  amends  for  the 


The  Ascension  of  Jesus.  321 


want  of  his  bodily  presence.  He  reminded  them,  too,  of 
the  prophecy  of  John  the  Baptist,  when  he  announced  of 
the  coming  Messiah,  "  I  baptize  you  with  water,  but  he 
shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost."  By  recalling-  to 
their  minds  these  heavenly  promises,  first  proclaimed  by 
John  at  the  ford  of  Jordan,  and  more  fully  unfolded  by 
himself,  in  his  discourse  on  the  night  of  his  and  their 
sufferings,  he  gave  them  now  clearly  to  understand,  that 
they  were  soon  to  receive  the  promised  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit :  and  the  direction  which  he  gave  them  was,  that 
they  should  hold  themselves  in  readiness  for  the  gift,  and, 
for  that  purpose,  should  remain  together,  waiting  for  the 
blessing  in  the  posture  of  faith  and  prayer,  at  Jerusalem. 
He  "  commanded  them  that  they  should  not  depart  from 
Jerusalem,  but  wait  for  the  promise  of  the  Father,  which, 
saith  he,  ye  have  heard  of  me.  For  John  truly  baptized 
with  water" — with  this  outward  washing  he  initiated  his 
disciples  into  the  expectation  of  the  kingdom,  and  inaug- 
urated me  into  the  office  of  proclaiming  the  kingdom— 
"  but  ye  shall  be  baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost  not  many 
days  hence."  Ye  shall  be  inaugurated  into  your  office  of 
witnessing  for  me,  as  I  was  to  my  ministry,  by  the  descent 
of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

By  thus  announcing  the  promise  of  the  Father  and  the 
prophecy  of  John  as  soon  to  be  accomplished,  and  direct- 
ing them  to  wait  at  Jerusalem  for  the  accomplishment, 
their  curiosity,  it  seems,  was  excited  on  the  old  subject 
of  the  temporal  kingdom  of  Israel.  For  Luke  imme- 
diately adds,  "  When  therefore  they  were  come  together;" 
— i.  e.,  when,  excited  by  curiosity,  they  had  gathered,  as  a 
body,  more  closely  together  around  his  person — a  gather- 
ing of  the  body  at  the  time  more  closely,  for  they  were 
already  on  their  last  walk  with  Jesus,  and  could  not 
assemble  around  him  afterwards — when  thus  excited, 
they  asked  of  him,  saying,  "  Lord,  wilt  thou  at  this  time 
restore  again  the  kingdom  unto  Israel?  " 

The  idea  of  the  re-establishment  of  the  kingdom  among 
the  sons  of  Israel,  in  greater  splendor  than  in  the  days  of 
Solomon,  by  the  person  of  the  coming  Messiah,  was  the 

42 


322  The  Ascension  of  Jesus. 


prevalent  opinion  cherished  among  the  Jews  at  that  age. 
This  opinion,  shared  in  likewise  by  the  twelve,  concern- 
ing Jesus  during  the  days  of  his  ministry,  had  been  dis- 
turbed and  shaken,  in  a  great  measure,  from  the  time  of 
his  public  condemnation  and  crucifixion.  On  the  day  of 
his  resurrection,  if  we  may  gather  the  general  sentiment 
of  the  disciples  from  the  speech  of  Cleopas,  they  were 
astonished,  but  could  scarcely  recover  from  the  blow 
given  to  their  hopes  in  regard  to  the  temporal  deliver- 
ance and  glory  of  Israel.  "  Our  rulers  "  have  "  delivered 
him  to  be  condemned  to  death,  and  have  crucified  him." 
"  We  trusted  it  had  been  he  who  should  have  redeemed 
Israel."  *  But  now  he  is  come  to  life  again,  and  we  are 
astonished ;  yet  how  can  he,  whom  both  Jews  and  Romans 
have  condemned,  gain  the  power  and  opportunity,  that  he 
once  had,  on  his  way  of  miracles,  to  take  and  wield  the 
kingdom  ?'  But  on  this  occasion  the  promises  of  Christ 
about  the  future,  arid  his  directions  that  they  wait  at 
Jerusalem  a  short  time  for  the  coming  of  the  Comforter, 
revive  at  once  their  hopes,  that  he  will  yet  establish  his 
power  over  the  people ;  and  their  curiosity  is  excited  to 
know,  whether  he  will  take  this  opportunity  to  restore  to 
Israel  the  temporal  rule  and  authority,  long  passed  over 
to  Assyrians,  Babylonians  and  Romans.  "  Wilt  thou  at 
this  time  restore  again  the  kingdom  to  Israel?" 

Jesus,  in  his  reply,  turned  off  their  thoughts  from  the 
time  of  the"  kingdom,  as  a  matter  they  would  better  under- 
stand from  events  in  the  future,  than  they  now  could 
from  any  mere  declarations  ;  and  bade  them,  in  effect, 
leave  that  question  for  the  Father  to  settle  by  his  provi- 
dential" authority  and  control,  and  attend  rather  to  the 
duties  which  were  more  immediately  to  occupy  their 
labors,  and  for  which  they  were  to  be  strengthened  by 
the  promised  gift  of  the  Spirit.  "  It  is,  not  for  you  to 
know  the  times  and  seasons,  which  the  Father  hath 
reserved  in  his  own  power," — placed,  fixed  by  his  own 
authority.  But  what  will  enlighten  you  far  more  into 
the  nature  of  the  kingdom,  and  your  duties  in  it,  "  Ye 
shall  receive  power,  after  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  come 


The  Ascension  of  Jesus.  323 


upon  you,  and  you  shall  be  witnesses  unto  me,  both  in 
Jerusalem,  and  in  all  Judea,  and  in  Samaria,  and  unto  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth." 

This,  if  we  except  his  parting  benediction,  was  his  last 
speech  with  them  on  earth — a  speech,  in  which  he  led 
forward  their  views  to  the  work  which  he  would  have 
them  execute  on  the  earth  as  his  witnesses:  that  they, 
who  had  seen  his  past  acts  of  mercy  and  power,  should 
proclaim  him  as  the  Messiah  and  Saviour  at  Jerusalem, 
the  seat  of  his  most  violent  persecutors  and  murderers ; 
in  all  Judea,  in  Samaria — at  that  day  hated  of  the  Jews — 
and  to  the  utmost  bound  of  the  world. 

The  Saviour,  with  the  band,  had  now  reached  the 
height  of  Olivet,  east  of  Jerusalem.  They  stood  together, 
it  is  supposed,  on  the  central  one  of  the  three  eminences 
which,  ranging  from  north  to  south,  crown  that  mount. 
Here,  as  they  took  their  last  look  of  his  familiar  and 
beloved  countenance,  he  was  standing  before  them,  with 
uplifted  hands,  pronouncing  upon  them  his  benediction 
and  farewell.  "  He  lifted  up  his  hands  and  blessed 
them."  And  as  the  words  of  blessing  and  well-wishing 
to  their  welfare  are  sounding  from  his  lips,  suddenly, 
his  countenance  being  still  fixed  on  theirs  and  theirs  on 
his,  he  begins  to  rise  from  the  earth  ;  he  ascends  into  the 
sky  ;  a  cloud  of  glory  rolls  under  and  around  him,  as  a 
sustaining  and  ascending  chariot ;  he  is  borne  upward 
beyond  their  sight ;  he  enters — as  the  glorious  vision 
would  indicate,  and  the  message  he  soon  sent  down  certi- 
fied— the  heavenly  world  ;  he  there  takes  a  seat,  as  head 
over  the  whole  creation,  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  "  And 
it  came  to  pass,  while  he  blessed  them,  he  was  parted 
from  them."  "  While  they  beheld,  he  was  taken  up,  and 
a  cloud  received  him  out  of  their  sight."  "  He  was  car- 
ried up  into  heaven."  "  He  was  received  up  into  heaven, 
and  sat  on  the  right  hand  of  God." 

The  eleven  were  looking  earnestly  upon  that  ascending 
cloud,  tracing  the  pathway  of  their  glorious  Lord  towards 
the  house  of  his  Heavenly  Father,  and  were  transfixed, 
with  adoring  wonder,  in  the  same  position,  after  he  had 


324  The  Ascension  of 'Jesus. 


gone  beyond  the  reach  of  their  vision  ;  when,  suddenly, 
their  attention  is  arrested  by  an  appearance  at  their  side. 
"  While  they  looked  steadfastly  towards  heaven,  as  he 
went  up,  behold,  two  men  stood  by  them  in  white 
apparel."  These  were  messengers,  sent  from  heaven  with 
the  very  first  tidings  from  their  ascending  Lord,  to  satisfy 
their  minds  more  fully  in  regard  to  the  exalted  throne  to 
which  he  was  gone,  and  to  leave  the  message  on  earth, 
that  its  inhabitants  are  to  see  him  at  a  future  day  return- 
ing in  like  power  and  glory.  Whether  these  messengers, 
whom  the  sacred  historian  calls  "  men,"  were  in  reality 
men,  sent  from  the  ranks  of  the  redeemed  in  the  heavenly 
world,  as  Moses  and  Elias  had  been  on  the  mount  of 
transfiguration ;  or  whether  they  were  sent  from  the 
angelic  orders,  all  of  which  are  to  accompany  the  Saviour, 
when  he  shall  come  again  in  the  glory  of  his  Father,  is 
not  certain  from  the  language.  For  they  are  called  men, 
in  reference  merely,  it  may  be,  to  their  personal  appear- 
ance :  and  such  an  appearance  we  know  to  have  been 
borne  by  angels,  on  their  visible  embassies  to  the  earth  in 
the  earlier  ages.  So,  on  the  day  of  his  resurrection,  two 
angels,  clothed  in  white,  appearing  as  young  men,  were 
seen  by  the  women,  as  they  came  to  the  sepulcher,  sitting 
within,  at  the  place  where  the  head  and  feet  of  the  Lord 
lay,  to  announce  his  removal  by  resurrection.  But  as  the 
disciples  are  thus  suddenly  turned  towards  these  heav- 
enly visitants,  they  hear  from  them  this  message  :  "  Ye 
men  of  Galilee,  why  stand  ye  gazing  up  into  heaven  ? 
This  same  Jesus,  which  is  taken  from  you  into  heaven, 
shall  so  come  in  like  manner  as  ye  have  seen  him  go  into 
heaven."  This  is  an  extraordinary  and  heavenly  an- 
nouncement of  the  place  whither  the  Lord  is  gone,  and 
of  the  certainty  and  glory  of  his  future  return  to  the 
world,  at  the  completion  arid  close  of  his  kingdom  of  grace 
on  the  earth. 

*  Gaze  up  no  longer,  in  astonishment  and  doubt  as  to 
the  future,  whether  he  shall  come  immediately  back,  or 
whether  he  is  lost  to  you  forever.  Look  forward  in  faith 
and  hope  to  another  coming  of  your  Lord,  in  like  glory,  in 


The  Ascension  of  Jesus.  325 


the  clouds  of  heaven.  He  now  takes  the  throne  to  rule, 
to  guide,  to  save  ;  he  will  come  in  the  glory  of  the  throne, 
to  gather  his  people  to  himself  and  to  his  Father  in 
heaven,  and  to  separate  from  among  them  all  that  offend 
and  do  iniquity.' 

Thus  were  the  band  parted  from  the  sight  of  the  Lord, 
on  whose  instructions  they  had  so  long  attended ;  whose 
miracles  of  divine  power  and  compassion  they  had  so 
often  witnessed  ;  and  whose  kind  and  patient  labors  for 
their  spiritual  welfare  had  so  deeply  won  their  love. 
They  cannot  now  ascend  with  their  Lord,  to  see  him  in 
his  heavenly  glory,  and  rejoice  before  him  there  :  they 
have  a  work  left  for  them  to  do  in  his  behalf  on  earth.  So 
they  leave  the  mount  of  his  benediction  and  Ascension, 
and,  broken  off  from  longer  earthly  intercourse  with  him, 
bearing  with  them  sweet  memories  of  the  voice  they 
shall  no  more  hear,  the  face  they  shall  no  more  see  in  the 
flesh,  they  go  to  the  place  appointed  them,  to  wait 
together  for  the  promised  presence  and  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  "  Then  returned  they  unto  Jerusalem  from 
the  mount  called  Olivet,  which  is  from  Jerusalem  a  sab- 
bath-day's journey."  u  And  when  they  were  come  in," 
[to  the  city],  "  they  went  into  an  upper  room,  where 
abode  both  Peter  and  James  and  John,  Andrew,  Philip 
and  Thomas,  Bartholomew  and  Matthew,  James  the  son 
of  Alpheus,  and  Simon  Zelotes,  and  Judas  the  brother  of 
James."  These  eleven  are  particularly  enumerated  by 
Luke  in  his  history  of  the  Acts,  to  identify  the  witnesses 
of  the  Ascension  with  the  constant  attendants  of  the  min- 
istry of  Christ,  to  whom  he  had  now  given  instructions  in 
regard  to  their  apostleship.  "  These  all,"  it  is  added, 
"  continued  with  one  accord  in  prayer  and  supplication, 
with  the  women  and  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and  with 
his  brethren."  Thus,  when  her  son  as  to  the  flesh  had 
ascended,  Mary,  the  mother,  now  under  the  care  of  John, 
with  her  remaining  children  now  believers  in  Jesus,  is, 
with  the  band,  to  await  the  gifts  of  the  coronation  ;  and 
the  women  from  Galilee  also,  the  other  Mary 'that  loved 
much,  and  Salome  his  aunt,  the  mother  of  James  and 


326  The  Ascension  of  Jesus. 


John,  who  attended  him  to  minister  to  his  wants  and  to 
those  of  the  band,  still  continue  their  ministrations :  and 
now,  that  their  Head,  to  whom  they  were  so  deeply 
attached,  is  gone  to  the  Father,  they  are  all  united  in  one 
sentiment  of  love  and  hope  to  draw  nigh  the  throne  of 
grace,  and  wait  for  the  promised  blessing.  They  now, 
in  constant  supplication,  look  with  a  livelier  faith  to  the 
Heavenly  Throne  ;  and  to  it  they  raise  all  the  affection 
and  confidence  inspired  by  the  past  instructions,  the  pro- 
mises, the  faithfulness  of  their  now  ascended  Advocate 
and  Lord. 

From  this  account  of  the  Ascension  of  Jesus,  we  may 
gather  the  following  topics  of  instruction. 

i.  This  historic  account  proves  the  reality  of  the  exal- 
tation of  Christ  to  the  throne  over  the  whole  creation. 

I  mean,  that  it  supplies  a  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence, 
which  is  necessary  to  render  that  evidence  complete, 
and,  without  which,  it  might  be  embarrassed  with  diffi- 
culties. For,  although  the  voice  of  prophecy  foretold 
the  ascent  of  Christ  to  the  throne,  after  his  earthly 
mission, — "  The  chariots  of  God  are  thousands  of  an- 
gels:  the  Lord  is  among  them.  Thou  hast  ascended  on 
high,  thou  hast  led  captivity  captive,  thou  hast  received 
gifts  for  men,  yea,  for  the  rebellious  ;  "  —though  Christ 
had  repeatedly  foretold  that  he  should  leave  the  world, 
and  go  to  the  Father;  and  proclaimed  on  the  mount  of 
Galilee,  "  All  power  is  given  to  me  in  heaven  and  on 
earth  "  ; — and  though,  on  that  mount,  the  Father,  from  the 
cloud  of  glory,  had  proclaimed  him  his  well-beloved  Son, 
and  caused  his  glory  to  be  prefigured  :  yet,  to  render  this 
prophetic  evidence  complete,  some  facts,  it  is  clear,  must 
have  taken  place,  after  the  resurrection  of  Christ  from 
the  dead,  in  regard  to  the  disposal  of  his  human  nature,  to 
accord  with  these  representations,  and  show  that  the)7 
were  founded  upon  historic  truth  and  reality.  With  these 
facts,  the  historical  record  just  examined  directly  sup- 
plies us :  and  as  these  facts  are  properly  attested,  the 
chain  of  evidence  is  complete.  Or,  if  it  is  objected  that 
the  narrative  is  not  recorded  directly  by  the  apostles 


The  Ascension  of  Jesus.  327 


themselves,  the  eye  witnesses,  but  by  Mark  and  Luke 
only,  yet  these  historians,  most  intimate  friends  of  the 
apostles,  must  have  received  the  information  directly 
from  them ;  and  their  narrative,  when  published,  must 
have  been  acquiesced  in  by  those  of  them  who  were  living : 
and  the  apostles  themselves  indirectly  give  us  their  own 
testimony,  in  what  they  state,  in  three  epistles  at  least,  of 
the  exaltation  of  Jesus,  and  his  design  to  re-appear  on 
earth  at  the  close  of  the  Gospel  dispensation.  The  evi- 
dence, therefore,  is  complete. 

There  have  been  those  who  have  seemed  stumbled  at 
these  very  facts  ;  who  think  this  particular  portion  of  the 
history  not  accordant  with  spiritual  ideas.  But  whether 
there  is  any  offense  truly  given  to  spiritual  ideas  in  this 
account,  and  whether  such  an  opinion  should  make  us 
hesitate  at  all  in  regard  to  the  testimony  of  eye  witnesses, 
may  appear  on  further  consideration.  What,  then,  is  in 
reality  more  fully  accordant,  I  would  ask,  with  all  the 
prophetic  and  Scriptural  representations  given  of  the 
mission  of  Christ  on  this  earth,  or  with  its  nature,  than 
that  it  should  thus  terminate  by  the  ascension  of  his 
human  nature,  out  of  our  world,  to  some  exalted  sphere 
of  visible  glory  at  the  head  of  the  heavenly  world  ? 

If  God  is  a  spirit,  everywhere  present,  yet  his  creation 
is  finite.  And  the  human  nature  of  Christ,  after  his  resur- 
rection from  the  dead,  must  have  a  locality  somewhere— 
a  residence  in  some  place  in  the  universe.  This  is  certain, 
from  his  having  a  finite  soul  resident  in  the  body.  And  if 
he  left  this  world  in  human  nature  for  some  other  sphere 
in  the  universe,  a  departure  from  the  world  in  any  place 
must  be  by  ascension. 

Now  there  are  only  three  suppositions  possible  in  the 
case ;  one,  that,  after  his  resurrection,  he  should  still 
remain  in  body  and  soul  on  the  earth  perpetually  ; 
another,  that  his  soul  should  be  again  separated  from  the 
body,  never  again  to  cleave  to  any  ;  and  a  third,  that  his 
soul,  still  in  union  with  the  body,  should  leave  this  world 
for  some  other  sphere  in  the  creation — one  of  highest 
exaltation,  as  represented  in  revelation. 


328  The  Ascension  of  Jesus. 


But  it  will  not  be  pretended  that  he  has  remained  in 
bodily  presence  on  the  earth  perpetually.  How,  too, 
could  it  be  consistent  with  the  representations  of  the 
supreme  glory  to  be  given  to  Christ,  as  the  reward  of  his 
humiliations,  that  he  should  still  remain  forever  on  this 
earth  after  his  resurrection  ?  Is  this  a  place — here,  where 
opposition  and  enmity  and  reviling  ever  met  him, — this 
scene  of  humiliation,  a  place  of  residence  consistent  with 
the  representations  of  the  honor  and  glory  to  be  given 
him  by  the  Father?  But,  again,  if  he  disappeared  by  the 
separation  of  his  soul  from  his  body,  what  would  that  be 
but  to  have  undergone  temporal  death  again  ?  For,  if  our 
Lord  showed  himself  alive  after  his  passion,  and  allowed 
the  disciples  to  handle  him,  and  see  that  he  was  not  a 
spirit,  but  had  flesh  and  bones,  it  is  clear  that  he  united 
soul  and  body,  and  could  not  have  disappeared  by  separa- 
tion of  the  soul  from  the  body,  without  the  death  of  the 
body.  He  must  then  have  laid  down  his  body  to  see 
corruption ;  and  how  would  that  harmonize  with  the 
Scriptural  representations,  or  with  the  nature  and  design 
of  his  mission  to  lay  down  his  life  once  only  for  the  sins  of 
men.  What  then  remains,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  as 
any  probable  disposition  of  the  human  nature  of  Jesus 
after  the  resurrection,  than  that  very  one  which  this  his- 
torical account  supplies  :  that  Jesus, — alive  from  the  dead, 
both  body  and  soul,  leaving  our  wrorld,  without  dropping 
that  body  in  death,  but  with  a  miraculous  change  merely 
passing  upon  it  to  transform  it  into  a  spiritual  body- 
ascended  in  glory,  in  presence  of  his  disciples,  to  heaven, 
to  a  visible  headship  there  over  the  angelic  world  and  the 
redeemed — to  the  throne  of  universal  dominion,  the 
throne  of  the  Father?  Nothing  more  need  be  supposed 
in  this  case,  than  what  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the 
narration  ;  that,  as  in  the  case  of  Elijah  and  of  those  who 
shall  be  alive  at  his  second  coming,  his  body,  as  he 
ascended,  was  changed  into  a  spiritual  body. 

Consider  now,  with  these  probabilities  of  the  case,  the 
evidence  which  the  narration  supplies.  The  eleven  dis- 
ciples are  all  before  him  on  Olivet.  They  hear  him  talk 


The  Ascension  of  Jesus.  329 


of  what  he  will  send  down  to  them,  from  the  throne,  in  a 
few  days.  He  blesses  them,  with  uplifted  hands.  He 
begins  to  rise  from  the  earth.  A  cloud  of  glory,  which 
had  ever  in  this  world  represented  the  presence  of  the 
Deity,  seems  as  it  were  re-enacting  the  scene  on  Tabor, 
and  proclaiming  to  the  witnessing  disciples,  in  symbol, 
that  the  Father,  well  pleased,  was  welcoming  him  as  a 
Son,  to  his  oivn  glory — as,  indeed,  it  is  represented  that  he 
shall  hereafter  come  again,  seated  on  a  cloud,  in  the  glory 
of  the  Father.  Still  more  to  confirm  them  as  to  the  ele- 
vated station  to  which  he  ascends,  two  heavenly  messen- 
gers come,  and  audibly  announce  that  their  Lord  has 
ascended  to  heaven,  and  that  there  he  shall  remain  till  he 
shall  descend  to  the  world  again  in  like  glory. 

Jesus,  then,  by  ascending  from  the  earth  after  his  resur- 
rection, it  is  obvious,  took  the  universal  throne — the  throne 
of  God — a  visible  headship  over  all  the  principalities  and 
powers  of  the  heavenly  world,  and  shines  forth  before  all, 
in  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,  in  the  express 
image  of  his  person.  So  that,  as  he  left  this  world  of  his 
humiliating  mission,  he  was  there,  for  his  faithful  obedi- 
ence and  sufferings  in  the  cause  of  God  among  men, 
crowned  with  honor  and  glory.  And  angels — who  cele- 
brated his  coming  on  earth  with  their  heavenly  songs, 
who  aided  him  in  his  fearful  agonies  with  their  sympa- 
thies, who  contemplated  with  wonder  the  place  where  he 
lay  entombed,  who  remained  after  his  ascent,  to  assure 
the  disciples  whither  he  had  gone,  and  of  the  interest 
felt  in  him  and  his  cause  in  the  heavenly  world ; — angels, 
on  that  day  doubtless,  went  up  with  him  in  the  cloud  of 
glory  and  seated  him  on  the  throne  over  all,  and  willingly 
and  joyously  obeyed  the  decree  of  the  Eternal  Father, 
when  bringing  his  Son  as  heir  into  possession  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  this  lower  world  :  "  Let  all  the  angels  of  God 
worship  him." 

2.  In  this  account  of  the  Ascension  of  Jesus  we  are 
taught,  that  he  desired  still  to  promote  the  welfare  of  his 
disciples  on  earth,  when  ascended  to  his  throne  of  glory. 

43 


33°  The  Ascension  of  Jesus. 


How  could  it  be,  after  all  he  had  done  for  the  cause  of 
God  among  them,  and  for  their  spiritual  welfare,  that  he 
should  for  one  moment  forget  their  welfare,  when  he 
went  to  his  own  joyous  rewards?  His  heart  was  proved 
too  compassionate  and  true,  amid  the  toils  and  sufferings 
and  death  of  his  ministry,  ever  to  be  absorbed  in  his  per- 
sonal glory,  so  far  as  not  to  be  affectionate  and  true 
towards  them  still.  Therefore,  when  about  to  be  exalted 
out  of  their  humble  state,  and  to  go  to  his  Father's 
throne,  he  engages  to  send  down  to  them  a  powerful 
Comforter,  the  Spirit,  to  supply  the  place  of  his  bodily 
presence ;  he  bids  them  wait  on  him,  with  confidence 
that  through  the  Spirit  they  shall  be  strengthened  for  the 
duties  and  trials  of  their  office  :  and,  as  he  leaves  the  earth, 
his  last  look  is  upon  them  ;  his  hands  are  lifted  up  in  bless- 
ing ;  his  heart  is  directed  to  them  in  assurances  of  good 
will,  in  wishing  them  to  fare  well  in  their  earthly  course. 

But  without  now  tracing  the  history  of  his  providence 
over  them  after  his  departure,  in  which  we  might  perceive 
the  fulfilment  of  his  promises  and  blessings,  can  we  not  see, 
in  this  very  conduct  of  his  at  the  time  of  his  departure 
for  the  throne,  that  he  expected,  (and  wished  them  also 
to  expect,)  that  he  would  still  effectually  provide  for  their 
strength  in  duty  and  trial,  and  cause  the  blessing  he 
pronounced  to  abide  effectually  with  them,  as  an  unfailing 
spring  of  grace  and  joy  to  their  souls. 

He  appointed  them,  indeed,  a  great  work,  hazardous 
and  difficult;  of  reproving  a  guilty  world  for  sin  against 
God,  and  calling  them  to  repentance,  and  of  preaching 
and  proclaiming  him  to  the  human  race  as  a  Saviour  ; 
and  to  begin  their  mission  at  Jerusalem — the  place  where 
resided  his  most  powerful  and  most  implacable  enemies, 
who  had  effected  his  crucifixion ;  and  who  would  be 
ready  to  assail,  with  murderous  hatred,  any  attempt  to 
revive  his  cause  again  among  the  people.  Yet  it  was  a 
great  object,  to  save  souls  and  redeem  them  to  the  king- 
dom of  his  Father,  for  which  he  had  cheerfully  laid  down 
his  own  life,  and  in  which  they  might  well  hazard  theirs. 
But  he  would  not  send  them  in  their  weakness  ;  forth 


The  Ascension  of  Jesus.  331 


unfurnished,  unprepared.  He  would  have  them  wait  on 
him  for  the  Spirit,  to  impart  wisdom  and  strength  and 
mighty  works,  to  convince  and  reprove  the  world,  and 
give  success  to  their  testimony.  He  would  see  them,  as 
they  waited  at  Jerusalem  for  the  baptism  of  the  Spirit, 
abundantly  supplied  with  power  and  might  from  above. 
They  should  reap  the  first  fruits  of  the  spiritual  harvests, 
that  were  to  be  gathered  from  his  sufferings — the  early 
and  latter  harvests  of  the  world.  And  wherever  they 
went,  the  blessing  he  left  was  to  abide  upon  them,  to 
cheer  and  sustain  their  hearts.  Thus  did  he  teach  us,  in 
his  care  for  the  disciples  whom  he  left  for  a  while  still  in 
the  world,  that  his  followers  in  all  their  duties  and  trials 
should  wait  on  him  for  strength  and  blessing :  that,  on 
the  throne  over  all,  he  is  still  as  regardful  of  their  wants, 
as  though  he  were  toiling  with  them  amid  the  cares  of 
this  life,  and  that  if,  in  compliance  with  his  directions, 
they  wait  on  him,  he  will  grant  them,  if  not  the  wonder- 
working powers  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  yet  that  enlightening, 
sanctifying,  comforting  influence  from  his  presence,  that 
will  be  sufficient  to  uphold  and  strengthen  them  amid  all 
their  earthly  duties  and  trials. 

3.  The  Ascension  of  Christ  to  the  Heavenly  Throne, 
has  taught  his  followers  to  rise  in  their  affections  and 
hopes,  from  worldly  to  heavenly  things. 

When  he  was  on  earth,  and  laboring  in  the  midst  of 
the  band  of  his  disciples,  they  were  continually  looking 
forward  to  some  great  change  in  their  worldly  condition ; 
expecting  to  see  their  master  on  the  throne  of  the  earthly 
Israel,  and  to  be  sharers  with  him  in  his  temporal 
power  and  glory.  These  expectations  seemed  irrecovera- 
bly lost  on  the  day  of  his  public  condemnation  and  cruci- 
fixion, and  were  scarcely  revived  again  on  the  day  of  his 
resurrection.  '  For  how  shall  Jesus  now  rise  to  power 
over  Israel,  hated  and  condemned  as  he  has  been  at  their 
hands  ? '  But  from  the  time  they  saw  him  on  Olivet,  as- 
cending in  glory  from  their  sight,  to  occupy  the  heavenly 
throne,  promising  his  blessings  from  thence ;  and  heard 
the  angel  witnesses  proclaim,  'he  who  has  ascended  now 


332  The  Ascension  of  Jesus. 


to  heaven  will  come  again  at  another  day  in  like  glory  ; ' 
they  cease  longer  to  gaze  upward  for  his  re-appearance 
to  bodily  vision  ;  they  cease  longer  to  look  up  for  his  imme- 
diate return  :  as  if  he  were  lost  to  them  forever,  they 
worship  him  together  as  their  ascended  Lord,  they  return 
to  Jerusalem  with  joy  and  thankfulness,  waiting,  in  sup- 
plication, on  the  Heavenly  Throne,  as  now  the  object  of 
all  their  faith — the  source  of  all  their  expectations  and 
joys. 

The  ascent  of  their  Lord  seems  to  have  led  their 
thoughts  and  hearts  at  once  to  a  throne  higher  than  any 
earthly,  and  to  joys  more  pure  and  lasting  than  those  of 
this  world.  Jesus,  the  friend  and  instructor  whom  they 
had  followed,  they  now  see  has  gone  up  before  them  to 
heaven,  carrying  with  him  all  the  affection  and  love  he 
had  manifested  to  them  in  life  and  in  death.  Their  views 
and  feelings  are  now  raised  beyond  the  objects  of  sight, 
which  are  temporary,  and  exalted  in  faith  to  the  invisible 
throne  of  all -might  and  dominion  in  heaven.  There  now 
is  Jesus,  a  forerunner  for  them  in  their  own  nature  :  and 
they  know  that  he  will  there  provide  them  their  eternal 
mansions.  There  is  Jesus,  their  high  priest  and  advocate, 
crowned  with  all  power:  and  now  they  may  confidently 
ask  anything  in  his  name  ;  for  if  they  do,  he  will  do  it  for 
them,  "  that  the  Father  may  be  glorified  thereby.''  There 
is  Jesus,  their  Friend,  and  with  him,  their  affections  and 
hopes  have  ascended  to  the  throne ;  and  all  their  duties  and 
trials  in  this  life  they  cast  on  his  providence  and  grace  ; 
their  eternal  joy  they  expect  to  derive  from  him,  when  he 
shall  come  again,  in  the  glory  of  that  throne,  to  take  up 
with  himself  all  his  redeemed  to  an  eternal  abode  with 
him  and  his  Father. 

Whether  the  little  band  at  Jerusalem,  immediately 
after  his  Ascension  were  led  at  once,  and  before  the  Pente- 
cost, to  all  these  views  of  hope  and  expectation  from  the 
throne  of  heaven,  we  may  not  indeed  be  certain.  Yet 
they  soon  were ;  as  is  obvious  from  the  fuller  description 
the  apostles  have  left,  of  the  speedy  spiritualizing  and 
exaltation  of  their  hopes.  And  it  is  certain  that  the 


The  Ascension  of  Jesus.  333 


means  which  the  Spirit  of  God  made  effectual  to  this  end, 
was  the  exaltation  of  Christ  above  this  world  to  the 
throne  of  heaven.  And  on  this  means  the  apostles  relied, 
to  elevate  the  affections  and  hopes  of  their  converts. 
"  Set  your  affections  on  things  above,  where  Christ  is  at 
the  right  hand  of  God."  "  Our  conversation  is  in  heaven, 
from  whence  also  we  look  for  the  Saviour,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  who  shall  change  our  vile  body,  that  it  may  be 
fashioned  like  unto  his  glorious  body." 

My  Christian  friends,  let  us  then, — as  we  see  Christ, 
having  taught  and  suffered  as  our  Saviour  on  earth, 
ascending,  after  his  resurrection,  from  this  earth  to  the 
heavenly  throne, — feel  that  that  throne  is  now  accessible 
to  us,  in  all  our  wants,  and  notwithstanding  our  guilt  and 
unworthiness :  because  Jesus  is  there,  our  Great  High 
Priest,  before  the  Father,  having  entered  the  holy  sanctu- 
ary with  the  blood  of  sprinkling  and  with  intercession,  to 
save  to  the  uttermost  those  who  come  to  God  in  his 
name  :  because  Jesus  is  there,  admitted  to  the  Heavenly 
Throne  itself,  as  the  immediate  Head  and  Lord  of  All. 
Let  us  treasure  up  all  our  affections  and  hopes  with  him, 
the  Forerunner  of  his  people  and  their  highest  Friend, 
who  has  gone  to  prepare  them  a  place  in  his  own  love  and 
the  love  of  the  Father  to  eternity.  And  let  us,  while  we 
remain  in  this  world,  so  cleave  to  him  in  faith,  so  breathe 
from  his  Spirit  the  spirit  of  love,  so  walk  in  his  precepts, 
and  so  labor  in  his  cause,  that,  on  that  final  day  of  his 
coming  to  receive  his  people  to  himself,  we  may  meet 
him  with  joy  and  not  with  grief — that  we  may  behold  his 
eyes  beaming  on  us  with  love,  his  hands  raised  over  us  in 
blessing,  and  hear  from  his  lips  the  sentence  of  eternal 
joy  and  welcome,  "  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  in- 
herit the  kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world."  O !  what  a  glorious  reward  for  the 
patience  and  labors  of  the  saints  on  earth — patience  in 
hope,  and  labor  in  love — thus  to-be  exalted  with  the 
exalted  Saviour  to  the  kingdom  of  the  Father,  and  to 
rejoice  in  their  presence  and  love  forevermore ! 


THE    WISDOM   OF   GOD   IN    THE    APPOINTMENT 
OF    TEMPORAL  DEATH. 


HEBREWS  IX  :  27. 

IT    IS    APPOINTED    UNTO   MEN    ONCE   TO    DIE. 

OUR  present  life  is  soon  to  terminate  in  the  night  of 
death  and  the  grave.  We  began  our  existence  amid  the 
graves  of  those  who  have  preceded  us ;  and  soon,  leaving 
our  stations  to  those  who  come  after  us,  must  we  lie 
down,  with  all  our  predecessors,  in  the  vast  cemetery  of 
the  dead.  This  world — our  birth  place — the  scene  of  our 
privileges,  toils  and  trials — is  also  our  appointed  sepul- 
cher:  and,  populous  as  it  ever  is  with  life,  it  is  still  more 
so  with  death,  into  whose  silent  chambers  all  the  genera- 
tions of  man  successively  pass. 

This  common  lot  of  humanity  proceeds  from  the 
appointment  of  the  Creator.  Such  is  the  conclusion  of 
reason.  For,  if  there  is  a  Creator  of  our  life,  he,  surely, 
must  be  its  supreme  disposer.  If  God  has  given  us  exist- 
ence, he,  evidently,  has  ordained  the  nature  of  that  exist- 
ence, the  laws  of  its  support  and  duration,  and  the  causes 
of  its  earthly  termination.  Such,  also,  is  the  assertion  of 
revelation.  No  assertion  can  be  clearer  than  that  in  the 
text.  For,  though  impersonal  in  its  form,  it  leaves  no 
doubt  on  any  mind  as  to  the  person  to  be  understood, 
from  whom  the  appointment  proceeds.  "  It  is  appointed 
unto  men  once  to  die." 

The  necessity  of  death,  which  is  common  to  the  race, 
we  are  to  regard,  therefore,  as  founded  in  the  voluntary 
appointment  of  the  Creator.  Yet  the  appointment  is  not 
arbitrary.  It  is  founded,  doubtless,  in  reasons  of  wisdom 
and  goodness. 


33^  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the 


There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  occasion  for  the 
appointment  arose  out  .of  the  sin  of  our  first  progenitor 
and  his  race  :  so  far,  at  least,  as  to  the  adoption  of  this 
particular  manner  of  removing  man  from  this  world  ;  and 
that,  if  Adam  and  his  race  had  continued  holy,  the 
removal  would  have  been  made  in  a  different  manner. 
But  as  the  appointment  was  one  to  be  adhered  to  univer- 
sally,— even  in  case  of  the  followers  of  Christ,  who  are 
forgiven  and  released  from  all  condemnation  and  punish- 
ment,— it  is  obvious,  that  such  appointment  of  temporal 
death  is  not  identical  with  condemnation  and  punishment, 
any  more  than  is  the  other  appointment, — which  is  said, 
in  the  context,  to  follow  death — that  of  a  day  of  universal 
judgment. 

There  must,  therefore,  be  other  reasons,  which  lie  at 
the  ground  of  appointing  such  a  particular  evil  as  tem- 
poral death  to  our  race,  and  not  the  simple  one  that 
justice,  in  punishing  sin,  requires  it:  more  general  reasons 
of  wisdom  and  goodness  ;  and  these  are  the  reasons  into 
which  we  will  now  inquire. 

Nor  can  such  an  inquiry  on  our  part  be  presumptuous, 
if  conducted  with  a  proper  spirit  and  in  a  proper  manner: 
with  a  desire  to  increase  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  to 
see  more  of  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  his  ways;  and 
with  a  careful  reliance  on  the  teachings  of  his  word  and 
providence,  for  our  instruction. 

I  observe,  then,  that  the  wisdom  of  God  in  appointing 
temporal  death  to  our  race  will  appear  obvious  to  us,  if 
the  three  propositions,  which  I  am  now  to  state,  are  ascer- 
tained, on  inquiry,  to  be  founded  in  truth. 

I.  That  the  plan   of  providence,  begun   with   man  and 
his  race,   forbids  his  immortal  existence  here  upon  the 
earth. 

II.  That  his  removal  from  the  earth,  if  necessary,  must 
be  effected  in  the  mode,  either  of  a  supernatural  change, 
or  of  temporal  death.     And, 

III.  That,  of  these  two  ways  of  removal,  death,  con- 
sidered in  its  bearings  on  the  present  and  future  state  of 
man    as    a    sinning    race,  has    several    advantages   which 
would  be  lost,  upon  the  plan  of  a  supernatural  change. 


Appointment  of  Temporal  Deatli.  337 

These  propositions,  if  sustained,  go  no  further,  it  will 
be  seen,  than  to  show  the  wisdom  of  this  general  plan  of 
procedure  with  our  race, — of  removing  all  its  generations 
from  the  world  in  this  one  way  of  temporal  death.  They 
enter  not  into  reasons  for  the  variation  of  time  and  man- 
ner in  the  removal  of  individuals  by  death,  nor  deny  that 
there  may  be  subordinate  and  special  reasons  which  regu- 
late these  also  in  wisdom.  But  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
general  appointment  of  temporal  death  to  our  race,  we 
are  now  to  judge  ;  and  let  us  enquire, 

I.  Whether  the  plan  of  providence,  begun  with  man 
and  his  race,  admits  of  his  immortality  here  on  the  earth  ? 

That  plan  may  be  considered  in  its  relation  both  to  the 
animal  and  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  :  yet  in  neither 
respect  does  it  proceed  on  the  ground  of  an  immortality 
to  his  life  here  on  the  earth. 

The  animal  nature  of  man  was  not  fitted  to  continue 
forever. 

For  his  body  is  composed  of  materials,  which  in  their 
nature  are  corruptible ;  its  organization,  in  relation  to  the 
forces  which  exist  on  the  earth,  is  frail  and  destructible  : 
with  its  powers  of  digestion  and  circulation,  it  is  depend- 
ent on  the  productions  of  the  world  for  its  nutriment,  and 
is  designed,  not  only  for  his  individual  existence,  but  for 
the  increase  of  his  species.  It  is  no  part  of  our  inquiry  now, 
why  he  was  originally  constituted  in  this  manner,  for  we 
are  speaking  only  of  the  dealings  of  God  with  a  creature 
thus  made.  But  certainly,  this  constitution  of  things  was 
in  irreconcilable  variance  with  allowing  him  and  his 
increasing  species  an  immortality  upon  the  earth.  For 
how  were  all  the  individuals  of  his  constantly  increasing 
race  to  escape  forever  those  adequate  causes  of  destruc- 
tion to  the  body,  which  arise  out  of  the  very  nature  of 
his  residence,  and  which  increase  with  the  increase  of  his 
species  ?  Such  causes  exist  in  the  various  chemical, 
mechanical,  and  other  forces,  which  are  constantly  act- 
ing on  the  globe,  and  among  which  man  is  to  live  and 
move  ;  and  they  may  arise  from  the  limited  extent  of  the 
means  of  nourishment  afforded  by  the  earth,  and  must  so 

44 


33$  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the 


arise  whenever  the  race,  by  the  supposition  forever  in- 
creasing, have  so  far  outstripped  these  means  as  to  impose 
the  necessity  of  starvation  somewhere. 

In  the  nature  of  things  as  at  first  constituted,  therefore, 
we  come  to  the  necessity,  either  of  a  change  in  the  bodily 
constitution  of  man  and  his  system  of  life  upon  the  earth, 
or  of  its  non-continuance  here  to  eternity.  Either  man 
must  cease  to  be  man,  or  the  plan  of  continuing  him  and 
his  constantly  increasing  species  immortal  on  the  earth 
must  fail.  In  this  way  we  reason  respecting  all  the  animal 
creation  under  man,  that  their  immortality  itself  is  out  of 
the  question :  and,  so  far  as  man  has  an  animal  nature,  I 
see  not  why  the  reasoning  is  not  perfectly  applicable  in 
respect  to  his  immortality  on  the  earth.  Nor  do  I  see 
how  the  fall  of  man  can  be  supposed  to  have  any  bearing 
upon  this  reasoning,  or  invalidate  its  force  at  all.  For  we 
are  speaking  now,  simply  respecting  the  necessity  of  a 
removal  of  man  from  the  earth  ;  not  of  the  mode  of  his 
removal.  This  might  have  been  effected,  had  Adam  and 
his  race  continued  holy,  at  any  moment  by  a  super- 
natural change  of  the  body  and  translation. 

But  that  a  necessity  of  providing  another  state  of  being 
for  the  immortality  of  man,  was  founded  originallv  in  his 
animal  constitution,  I  think  is  taught,  in  most  explicit 
terms,  by  the  apostle  Paul,  when  assigning  the  reasons  for 
a  change  in  the  body  at  the  resurrection  he  says,  that 
"  flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God  " 
that  "  a  corruptible  body  doth  not  inherit  corruption  " 
that  "  Adam,"  referring  here  to  the  account  of  his  crea- 
tion in  Genesis,  "  was  made  a  living  soul  " — drawing  the 
breath  of  life  like  the  animal  creation, — /.  e.,  constituted 
by  his  Creator  with  a  life  in  a  natural  body,  that  is  animal 
and  corruptible.  And  the  history  states  that  Adam  was 
favored  at  the  first  with  a  tree  of  life,  whose  leaves  he 
might  apply  to  heat  or  invigorate  a  frame  susceptible,  in 
its  nature  and  from  surrounding  forces,  of  injury  or 
decay. 

But  if  we  turn  from   a  survey  of  man's  animal  nature, 
and  consider  his  spiritual  nature,  the  truth  of  our  observa- 


Appointment  of  Temporal  Death.  339 


tion  will  be  still  more  apparent, — that  it  is  necessary  to 
provide  for  his  immortal  existence  elsewhere  than  in  this 
world.  The  essential  facts,  connected  with  his  spiritual 
nature,  are  these  :  that  he  is  subjected  to  a  state  of  moral 
discipline  and  probation  here,  is  held  accountable  to  his 
Creator  for  his  conduct,  and  is  to  reap  the  results  of  his 
trial  during  his  subsequent  immortality. 

The  fact  is  indisputable,  that  the  human  species  have 
always  commenced  their  existence  here  under  such  an 
order  of  things  as  probation.  Adam,  the  father  of  the 
race,  did  ;  and  all  his  posterity  do  now.  Such  an  order- 
ing of  things  may  be  necessary — let  such  a  nature  at  the 
outset  commence  acting,  either  in  a  holy  manner,  like 
Adam,  or  in  a  sinful  manner,  like  his  posterity — to  its  con- 
firmation in  holiness,  or  to  its  recovery  from  sin.  But, 
however  that  may  be,  such  a  plan  of  dealing  with  man's 
spiritual  nature  in  this  world  is  settled  ;  and,  things  being 
as  they  are,  the  question  simply  is,  whether  they  do  not 
give  rise  to  the,  necessity  of  the  removal  of  man.  Now, 
on  this  plan  of  dealing  with  man,  it  is  obvious,  that  there 
must  be  a  close  to  the  probation  of  each  individual,  by 
retribution  in  reward  or  punishment ;  that,  this  cannot 
take  place  in  the  world,  so  long  as  the  plan  continues 
of  making  the  world  the  trial-place  for  the  species ; 
and  that,  to  constitute  it  other  than  their  trial-place, 
involves  the  necessity  of  the  removal  of  a  part  or  the 
whole  of  the  race  from  the  world  ;  i.  e.,  the  impossibility  of 
their  immortal  existence  on  the  earth.  Each  step  in  this 
process  is  so  evident  in  itself,  or  so  founded  on  that  which 
precedes  it,  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  conclu- 
sion. 

But  let  us  review  it.  I  said  that  there  must  be  a 
close  to  the  probation  of  each  individual,  by  retribu- 
tion in  punishment  or  reward.  Is  not  this  position,  with 
which  we  begin,  a  self-evident  truth  ?  The  probation 
must  come  to  a  close,  or  be  continued  to  eternity.  But 
there  is  an  absurdity  in  supposing  a  probation,  which 
is  to  decide  an  eternal  state,  to  be  continued  to  eternity. 
That  would  destroy  the  eternity,  for  which  the  trial  was 


34O  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the 


designed.  That  would  be  equivalent  to  asserting,  that 
a  thing  is  designed  for  eternity,  and  is  not  designed  for 
it,  at  the  very  same  time :  which  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  But  let  us  look  at  the  particulars  of  the  case. 

The  probation  of  man,  as  now  constituted,  has  refer- 
ence to  the  species  as  commencing  their  spiritual  exist- 
ence and  action  in  sin  ;  deserving  punishment ;  and  receiv- 
ing the  offers  of  redemption  through  Christ : — a  probation, 
in  favor  of  their  repentance,  which  is  to  have  its  issues  in 
eternal  retribution.  Nothing  is  plainer  now,  than  that 
to  continue  those,  who  remain  confirmed  in  impenitence 
and  sin,  forever  amid  the  many  undeserved  privileges  and 
blessings  attendant  on  this  state  of  trial,  would  prevent 
the  eternal  retribution  of  deserved  punishment  from  tak- 
ing place ;  and  that,  to  continue  the  followers  of  Christ 
forever  amid  the  imperfections,  toils,  struggles  and  sor- 
rows of  this  state  of  trial,  would  equally  annihilate  the 
result  of  an  eternal  retribution  in  the  rewards  of  grace. 

Since  then  there  must  be  a  close  to  the  probation  of 
each  individual  of  the  race,  at  some  time,  by  his  entrance 
on  the  necessary  results  of  rewards  and  punishments,  we 
come  to  the  next  step  in  our  reasoning  :  that  this  entrance 
of  individuals  upon  eternal  retribution  cannot  take  place 
in  this  world,  so  long  as  the  plan  continues  of  making  it 
the  trial-place  for  the  race.  For  if  the  race  continues 
going  forward  in  numbers,  if  new  individuals  are  con- 
stantly coming  forward  upon  probation,  then,  to  continue 
the  world  still,  as  a  trial-place  for  them,  involves  the 
necessity  of  continuing  a  system  of  providence,  which  is 
adapted  to  probation — a  system,  which  distributes  privi- 
leges and  trials,  blessings  and  chastisements,  indiscrimi- 
nately to  all,  and  which  is  inconsistent  with  a  state  of  full 
retribution  in  rewards  or  punishments,  to  any  who  remain 
here. 

We  come,  then,  in  our  next  step,  inevitably  to  the 
result,  that  it  is  impossible — on  the  present  plan  of  provi- 
dence— to  attach  an  immortal  existence  to  the  race  on  the 
earth.  For  as  man  must  close  his  probation  in  retribu- 
tion, and,  as  this  close  cannot  take  place  by  continuing 


Appointment  of  Temporal  Death.  341 


him  on  the  earth,  so  long  as  this  world  is  made  the  trial- 
place  of  his  species,  it  follows  that  if  his  existence  is  con- 
tinued here,  the  world  must  cease  to  be  a  place  of  trial : 
but  now  there  is  no  plan  which  can  be  adopted  with  the 
world,  when  it  ceases  to  be  the  trial-place  for  man,  which 
does  not  necessarily  interfere  with  the  possibility  of  con- 
tinuing- the  race  upon  it. 

The  world  at  that  era,  we  may  suppose,  may  be  entire- 
ly destroyed,  or  swept  of  all  its  inhabitants  ;  or  it  may  be 
made  the  residence  for  a  totally  new  order  of  beings  ;  or, 
if  used  for  man,  it  must  by  the  supposition  be  made  a 
place  of  retribution.  No  other  plan  is  conceivable.  But, 
if  the  world  is  entirely  destroyed,  or  entirely  swept  of  its 
inhabitants,  or  made  the  residence  of  another  order  of 
beings,  either  plan  would  involve  the  entire  removal  of 
the  race.  Or,  if  made  a  place  of  retribution  for  man,  it 
must  be  made,  either  a  place  of  punishment  for  the  lost, — 
and  that  would  involve  the  necessity  of  removing  the 
redeemed  out  of  it ;  or  a  place  of  reward  for  the  redeem- 
ed,— and  that  would  involve,  by  necessity,  the  removal  of 
the  lost. 

On  every  possible  disposition  of  the  world,  therefore, 
removal  in  part  or  in  whole  is  necessary.  The  contin- 
uance of  the  species  here  forever,  is  impossible. 

If  then,  there  exists  a  necessity  for  the  removal  of  man 
from  this  state,  founded  in  his  antmat  and  spiritual  nature, 
we  inquire— 

II.  Whether  this  removal  must  not  be  effected,  in  the 
mode  either  of  a  supernatural  change  of  body  and  trans- 
lation, or  of  death  and  a  subsequent  resurrection  ? 

For  it  is  obvious,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  removal  of 
the  race  to  their  scenes  of  residence  in  retribution,  must 
be  attended  with  some  important  change  in  their  physical 
constitution,  to  adapt  them  to  their  new  residence  and 
their  new  condition.  There  are  two  reasons  for  this,  both 
adverted  to  in  revelation,  which  I  would  particularly 
notice.  One  is,  that  when  mankind  enters  upon  a  state  of 
retribution,  there  can  be  no  propriety  in  the  further 
increase  of  the  species.  For  that  would  be  to  place  new 


342  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the 


individuals,  with  their  animal  and  spiritual  nature,  at  the 
very  commencement  of  their  existence  in  opposite  states 
and  worlds  of  reward  and  punishment. 

But  another  and  still  more  important  reason  for  such  a 
change,  is  that  the  body  should  be  then  fitted  for  an  im- 
mortal and  incorruptible  state. 

Now,  though  the  present  physical  constitution  of  man 
is  too  frail  and  perishable,  and  the  subject  of  too  many 
wants,  for  such  a  state,  it  does  not  follow,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  in  order  to  exist  imperishably,  man  must  be 
absolutely  disembodied,  and  entirely  divested  of  a  physi- 
cal constitution.  That,  indeed,  would  leave  no  alterna- 
tive but  simply  temporal  death. 

For  a  physical  body,  for  aught  that  appears,  may  be 
composed  of  such  materials,  and  constructed  in  such  a 
manner,  and  placed  in  connection  with  such  a  .world,  as 
that,  when  animated  and  energized  by  a  living  spirit,  it 
should  be  forever  beyond  the  reach  of  any  secondary 
causes  of  dissolution.  And  a  body, — if  constituted  of  ma- 
terials and  held  together  by  laws  of  life,  which  no  chemi- 
cal or  mechanical  forces  existing  could  destroy  or  crush, 
and,  if  dependent  on  no  external  materials  for  supply,  or 
on  none  but  such  as  are  unlimited  as  light  or  space,— 
would  be  justly  called  strong  and  immortal,  and  be  fitted 
for  an  endless  existence.  There  would  be  no  forces  existing 
in  the  universe,  adequate  to  its  dissolution  or  destruction. 

If,  then,  the  removal  of  man  from  probation  to  the  scene 
of  his  retribution  requires  a  change  in  his  bodily  consti- 
tution, or  if,  to  use  the  terms  of  Scripture,  "  the  natural 
body"  which  man  has  here  is  unfitted  for  the  world  of 
retribution,  and  he  is  to  have,  while  resident  there,  a 
"  spiritual  body,"  then  it  follows,  in  the  next  place,  that 
the  removal  of  man  to  that  state  must  be  effected,  either 
by  means  of  an  instantaneous  supernatural  change,  or  by 
means  of  death. 

For  man  comprises,  in  his  constitution  of  being,  a  spirit 
in  vital  union  with  a  body.  And  in  order  to  be  invested 
with  a  spiritual  body — the  body  in  which  he  enters  on 
retribution, — there  must  be,  either  a  severance  of  his 


Appointment  of  Temporal  Death.  343 

spirit  from  the  body,  or  there  must  not.  If  there  is  a 
severance  from  the  body,  then  temporal  death  takes  place  ; 
and,  in  order  to  enter  on  the  world  of  retribution,  there 
must  be  a  subsequent  re-union  to  his  body,  made  spir- 
itual— which  is  resurrection.  But  if  there  is  not  a  sever- 
ance of  his  spirit  from  the  body,  and  life  continues,  then, 
in  order  to  enter  on  his  eternal  state  with  a  spiritual  body, 
it  is  necessary  that,  while  the  union  of  soul  to  body  still 
continues,  there  should  be  an  instantaneous  and  super- 
natural change  in  the  composition  and  organization  of 
the  body  itself,  transforming  it,  as  in  the  case  of  Elijah, 
from  the  natural  into  the  spiritual. 

This  is  the  only  alternative  which  exists,  and  between 
which  the  choice  lies  as  to  a  general  and  common  plan  of 
procedure,  in  respect  to  the  removal  of  man  from  his 
present  to  his  future  and  immortal  state. 

We  are  prepared  now  to  enter  upon  the  consideration 
of  the  third  and  last  observation,  by  which  I  would  show 
the  wisdom  of  God  in  appointing  temporal  death  to  our 
race. 

III.  That  in  consequence  of  the  sin  of  man,  and  the 
plan  adopted  for  his  redemption,  death  has  many  advan- 
tages, as  a  mode  of  removal,  above  that  of  a  supernatural 
change. 

This  observation  is  applied,  not  to  every  form  of  pro- 
bation, which  might  be  supposed  to  be  adopted  with  man, 
or  to  that  which  was  originally  adopted  with  Adam  ;  but 
to  that  which  now  exists — in  which  man  commences  his 
spiritual  existence  and  action  in  sin,  and  is  put  on  trial, 
with  reference  to  recovery  and  redemption.  Taking  the 
facts  of  human  probation  as  they  are,  the  comparison 
turns  on  the  application  of  the  two  possible  modes  of 
removal  from  the  present  state,  and  the  bearings  they 
respectively  have  on  the  existing  and  future  state  of  man. 

Now,  it  must  be  conceded  that  the  removal  by  death 
occasions  pain  more  or  less  intense.  In  the  separation  of 
the  body  from  the  soul,  there  is  necessarily  involved  the 
painful  sensations  which  we  call  the  pangs  of  death.  Yet 
there  is  nothing  else  to  render  departure  by  death  any 


344  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the 


more  painful  than  departure  by  a  sudden  and  miraculous 
change.  For,  by  the  supposition,  all  other  things  remain 
the  same ;  and  consequently,  whatever  other  sources  of 
painful  emotion  are  attendant  on  departure  out  of  this 
state  of  probation,  besides  the  mere  sensation  of  dying, 
must  equally  attach  to  either  mode  of  departure.  The 
trials  of  separation  from  the  world  and  our  kindred,  and 
the  emotions  of  the  soul  in  entering  on  its  future  lot, — 
whether  gathered  from  sin  and  the  condemning  power  of 
the  law,  which  now  constitute  the  sting  and  venom  of 
death,  or  from  deliverance  and  joy  granted  through 
Christ, — must  be  essentially  the  same.  By  the  appoint- 
ment of  death,  therefore,  as  the  mode  of  removal,  all  the 
amount  of  evil,  that  is  necessarily  added  to  the  endless 
existence  of  man,  consists  of  the  few  pangs  of  sensation 
which  attend  it. 

But  even  these  pangs  are  probably  counterbalanced  by 
the  superior  joys  attendant  on  a  subsequent  resurrection. 
This  is  indeed  a  conjecture :  but  a  conjecture  highly 
probable.  All  the  analogies  of  the  present  state,  which 
arise  out  of  the  greater  pleasure  received  from  the  resto- 
ration of  any  gift  after  it  is  lost,  than  from  its  continued 
possession,  strongly  favor  the  supposition.  These  joys, 
if  superior,  are  justly  set  off  to  counterbalance  the  animal 
pangs  of  death :  for  they  are  offered  to  all,  in  this  state  of 
probation,  and  they  are  the  ultimate  possession  of  all, 
who  would  not,  on  either  method  of  removal,  equally 
lose  all  future  blessedness  by  an  impenitent  life. 

If,  then,  all  the  evils  which  necessarily  attach  to  tem- 
poral death,  are  merely  the  short  and  momentary  pangs 
of  sensation  which  attend  upon  it,  and  if  these  even  are 
counterbalanced  to  every  individual,  who  would  not 
equally  lose  the  joys  of  immortality  on  either  plan,  it 
clearly  follows,  that  it  is  wise  and  best  to  adopt  that  par- 
ticular plan  of  the  two,  which  most  favors  the  ends  which 
God  in  his  goodness  is  seeking  to  accomplish,  in  his  dis- 
pensations to  our  race.  Now  that  death  is  the  plan  which 
most  favors  those  ends,  is  evident  from  the  following  con- 
siderations. 


Appo int incut  of  Temporal  Death.  345 


i.  Temporal  death,  by  the  pangs  with  which  it  ushers 
the  race  into  their  state  of  retribution,  serves  to  remind  the 
living,  in  a  most  affecting  manner,  of  the  eternal  death 
which  sin  deserves. 

Since  mankind  are  sinners,  and  the  plan  of  divine  good- 
ness towards  them  in  this  state  of  probation  is,  to  favor  their 
humility  and  repentance,  and  their  resort  to  the  Redeemer 
for  pardon  and  life,  it  is  surely  most  consonant  to  such  a 
design,  to  give  them  in  his  providence  some  impressive  tes- 
timonies to  their  ill  desert ;  to  strew  around  them  some 
striking  tokens  of  the  evil  they  have  incurred,  and  from 
which  they  need  deliverance;  to  deal  out  to  them  some 
drops  and  prelibations  from  that  cup  of  his  wrath,  which  is 
hereafter  to  be  poured  out  without  mixture  upon  the  heads 
of  the  wicked.  This  serves  in  this  life  the  purposes  of  warn- 
ing, chastisement,  correction.  He  has  done  this,  to  some 
extent,  in  the  pains  he  calls  us  to  experience  in  all  our  way 
in  life.  But  what  more  impressive  or  more  appropriate  tes- 
timony could  be  given,  than  to  place  around  the  portals  of 
our  entrance  into  eternity  the  bitter  pangs  of  death  ? 
There  is  nothing  witnessed  or  experienced  in  the  present 
state,  which  so  vividly  represents  to  us  the  terrors  of  final 
ruin  and  punishment,  as  dying : — it  is  dying,  and  dying,  yet 
never  dead ! — nothing  which  so  much  attests  that  such  a 
state  awaits  those,  who  refuse  to  yield  to  the  spiritual  influ- 
ences and  salutary  discipline  of  this  life.  Placed  as  these 
pangs  are  at  the  gate  of  eternity,  through  which  we  must 
inevitably  pass,  they  cry  out  to  us  through  this  whole  life, 
to  fly  in  our  guilt  to  the  Redeemer  for  salvation,  and  shun 
the  pangs  of  the  second  death — the  eternal  death  of  the  soul. 

The  prospect  of  death,  indeed,  may  not  be  so  pleasant 
to  our  feelings,  as  would  be  the  idea  of  an  easy  transition 
into  eternity  by  an  instantaneous  and  miraculous  change : 
but  it  is  more  conducive  to  our  spiritual  welfare  ;  better 
adapted,  in  conformity  with  the  plan  of  God  for  our  sal- 
vation, to  keep  us  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  great 
evil  we  deserve, — to  keep  us  humble  and  lowly  before 
God,  and  at  the  feet  of  our  Redeemer,  all  the  days  of  our 
appointed  time  until  our  change  comes. 

45 


346  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the 


2.  Again,  death  by  separating  the  dead  from  our  sight, 
serves  to  conceal  from  us  a  future  state,  and  throw  us  on 
faith. 

The  method  of  God's  goodness  toward  us  in  this 
life,  is  to  guide  us  by  his  word  and  by  means  of  faith  ; 
and,  by  imparting  sufficient  testimony  about  the  future  to 
serve  us  for  motives  of  encouragement  and  strength,  to 
make  us  mainly  intent  on  our  present  duties ;  and,  by 
keeping  us  strictly  to  a  temperate,  sober  and  godly  life, 
to  train  us  up  for  holiness  in  his  kingdom.  Now  it  is 
well  for  this  end,  to  throw  us  by  his  dispensations  of  prov- 
idence on  faith,  and  to  draw  us  intently  to  his  word  for 
our  instruction,  there  to  receive  from  his  Spirit,  his 
admonitions,  reproofs,  directions  and  counsel.  Since 
then,  it  is  the  method  of  his  Spirit  to  guide  us  to  salvation 
by  means  of  his  word,  it  cannot  favor  the  design,  to  call 
back  the  dead  to  us  to  report  to  us  their  state  and  condi- 
tion. Neither  can  it,  to  have  heaven  and  hell  opened  as 
it  were  to  our  sight,  by  the  miraculous  change  of  those 
around  us,  and  their  visible  flight  from  us  to  their  differ- 
ent abodes  of  joy  and  sorrow.  We  might,  indeed,  be 
greatly  agitated  to  see  a  friend  at  our  side  suddenly 
transfigured  into  a  form  of  glory,  and  with  transports  of 
joy  on  his  countenance  betokening  his  leave  of  us,  as  he 
ascended  on  a  chariot  of  fire  to  the  heavens.  We  might  be 
greatly  agitated  to  see  another  transformed  into  a  body 
of  darkness  and  shame,  and  to  hear  him  pouring  upon  our 
ears  the  groans  of  perdition,  as  he  was  driven  away  from 
us  by  the  breath  of  the  Almighty.  We  might  be  greatly 
agitated,  by  looking  thus  over  the  borders  of  the  eternal 
world,  and  seeing  the  eternal  condition  of  our  friends. 
But  would  these  agitations  of  sight  administer  to  our 
faith  ?  Would  they  send  us,  with  greater  anxiety,  to  the 
word  of  God  for  instruction,  to  receive  from  him  the  les- 
sons of  life?  Plainly,  a  providence  which  leaves  the 
bodies  of  men  with  us  at  their  departure,  and  conceals 
from  sight  their  disembodied  spirits,  which  sets  the  seal 
of  death  and  the  grave  upon  all  the  transactions  of  the 
future  world,  which  bids  us  leave  all  our  departed  friends 
to  God's  keeping,  and  learn  all  our  duty  and  welfare  from 


Appointment  of  Temporal  DeatJi.  347 


his  word — this  is  that  which  best  serves  to  nourish  in  our 
hearts  a  filial  faith  and  obedience,  and  to  secure  the  end 
of  our  faith,  the  salvation  of  our  souls. 

3.  Again,  death,  by  the  causes  which  precede  it,  usually 
gives  warning  of  our  approaching  removal  from  the 
world,  and  thus  favors  particular  preparation. 

All  we  know  of  death  is,  that  the  union  of  the  animat- 
ing soul  with  the  body,  depending  on  certain  conditions 
of  the  body,  ceases  when,  from  any  causes,  those  condi- 
tions are  destroyed.  This  may  take  place  from  various 
causes  ;  but,  according  to  the  order  of  providence,  it  is  a 
process  by  natural  causes ;  and  the  event  is  consonant,  in 
this  respect,  to  the  general  economy  of  events  in  the 
world.  Its  approach,  therefore,  is  usually  indicated  by 
its  causes,  and  the  opportunity  is  presented — the  warning 
given — for  particular  preparation.  But  this  could  not  be, 
on  a  system  of  immediate  change  and  translation.  I  am 
not  prepared  to  state  all  the  consequences  of  such  a 
system,  in  which  it  might  be  said  of  every  one,  at  his 
departure,  that,  like  Enoch,  he  was  not  found,  for  God 
took  him  :  but  one  thing  is  certain,  that,  suddenly,  in  a 
moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  by  the  fiat  of  the 
Almighty, — as  it  will  be  true  of  those  who  survive  at 
the  sound  of  the  last  trump, — the  friend  now  at  our  side,  or 
the  absent  friend  whom  we  were  expecting  to  return,  would 
exchange  his  mortal  for  an  immortal  clothing,  and  wing 
his  way  from  the  earth  to  his  fixed  abode  for  eternity. 

Now,  if  this  were  a  perfect  world,  and  every  one  in  it 
were  perfectly  and  constantly  prepared  in  all  his  con- 
cerns, both  temporal  and  spiritual,  to  leave  it  at  any 
moment,  it  might  not  make  so  much  difference,  whether 
any  warnings  were  introduced  into  it  of  approaching 
removal.  But,  imperfect  and  sinful  as  this  world  is, 
where  so  much  is  left  at  loose  ends  in  temporal  and  spir- 
itual matters,  where  most  are  disposed  to  put  off  all  pre- 
paration for  eternity,  and  where  those  who  think  of 
preparation  are  so  prone  to  forget  it  and  be  surprised,  it  is 
a  mercy  to  the  world  and  all  that  are  in  it,  that  there 
should  be  warning  administered,  to  favor  special  prepara 


348  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the 


tion — that  some  intimations  should  be  given  beforehand 
that  our  departure  is  nigh — that  some  messenger  should 
arrive  before  our  removal,  crying,  *  Set  thine  house  in 
order,  for  thou  must  depart.'  Such  a  herald  and  fore- 
runner precedes  death,  in  disease.  His  signals  are  seen 
in  the  emaciated  form,  the  haggard  eye,  the  hectic  flush. 
His  presence  is  felt,  in  the  various  pangs  he  administers 
by  his  touch.  He  withdraws  men  from  the  busy  occupa- 
tions of  life.  He  leads  them  into  the  chamber  of  retire- 
ment. He  opens  their  ear  to  discipline,  that  they  give  up 
their  transgressions;  that,  on  the  borders  of  the  eternal 
state,  they  prepare  to  leave  the  world  with  the  least  pos- 
sible injury  to  the  interests  or  feelings  of  their  fellow-men, 
by  any  neglect  of  duty  to  them, — with  the  least  possible 
dishonor  to  God,  which  may  arise  from  neglect  of  inter- 
course with  him  in  prayer  and  faith. 

One  consideration  more  only,  I  will  add. 

4.  That  death,  by  reserving  that  which  is  supernatural 
in  the  change  to  the  future,  affords  the  opportunity  for  a 
more  illustrious  manifestation  of  the  glory  of  God  at  the 
last  day. 

On  either  plan  of  removal,  the  individuals  of  the  race 
must  be  removed  at  successive  periods  of  time,  in  order 
to  provide  room  for  their  successive  generations  ;  at  least, 
until  that  day,  when  the  world  ceases  to  be  the  trial-place 
of  man,  and  the  race  is  to  extend  no  further.  But  if  the 
individuals  of  the  race,  successively,  were  transformed 
and  translated  to  their  respective  places  of  retribution, 
the  affairs  of  this  world  would  end,  simply  in  the  co-tem- 
poraneous  transformation  and  translation  of  the  particular 
generation  who  were,  at  the  time,  on  this  stage  of  life. 
The  general  resurrection  of  all  mankind  from  the  dead, 
that  most  stupendous  and  impressive  scene  of  God's 
power,  could  not  take  place.  And  the  general  summoning 
of  mankind  to  a  public  judgment,  though  it  were  pos- 
sible, would  not  seem  so  consonant  to  the  previous  dis- 
pensation, which  had  placed  all,  with  their  spiritual  and 
immortal  bodies,  in  their  abodes  of  full  and  perfect  retri- 
bution. 


Appointment  of  Temporal  Death.  349 

Now,  if  this  world  were  a  perfect  world,  and  all  its 
inhabitants  passed  from  it  into  eternity  without  any 
grounds  for  impeachment  of  their  conduct,  or  without 
any  impeachments  cast  by  them  on  the  conduct  of  God, 
their  Ruler ;  if  all  mankind,  and  all  other  beings  ac- 
quainted with  them,  were  perfectly  satisfied  of  rectitude 
in  all  the  transactions  of  men,  and  of  God  towards  them  ; 
there  might,  indeed,  be  no  occasion  for  a  judicial  trial, 
like  that  of  the  general  judgment.  But  it  is  a  sinful 
world.  Complaints  against  men,  and  complaints  against 
God,  have  been  loud  in  it,  and  have  been  wafted,  in  sighs  or 
curses,  up  to  heaven  through  every  generation.  It  is  a 
divided  world.  Some  have  taken  up  the  Lord's  side, 
confessed  the  wrong,  and  justified  God,  and  consented  to 
accept  and  follow  the  Redeemer,  whom  he  has  sent, 
through  much  tribulation.  Others  have  held  out  against 
the  Lord  and  his  Anointed,  and  opposed  his  friends,  and 
hoped  to  triumph  in  their  cause.  There  must  then  be  a 
judicial  trial  and  a  settlement,  in  order  to  give  peace  to 
God's  disturbed  kingdom — to  vindicate  his  character,  and 
protect  his  trusting  friends.  Now,  if  it  were  possible  to 
do  this  on  the  plan  of  the  successive  transformation  of 
men,  and  their  successive  translation  into  the  abodes  of 
final  retribution,  it  could  not  be  so  appropriately  and  so 
impressively  done,  as  on  the  plan  of  removal  by  death.  By 
such  a  removal,  though  men  successively  depart  this  life, 
they  do  not  enter  at  once,  with  their  spiritual  bodies,  on 
the  full  and  complete  glories  or  miseries  of  their  final 
state.  They  are  reserved  for  a  day  of  open  and  final 
judgment.  And  when  that  day  arrives,  all  will  be  in 
harmony  and  keeping  with  so  important  a  transaction,  and 
make  an  impression  on  every  heart  too  deep  for  eternity 
to  efface !  The  Judge  will  descend  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven.  The  heralding  trump  of  the  archangel  shall 
sound  loud  and  wax  stronger,  till  the  very  dead  hear  and 
awake  from  the  dust  of  the  earth.  Before  the  Judge,  now 
seated  on  his  throne,  shall  be  assembled  all  the  nations  of 
men.  There  will  he  make  manifest  to  the  assembled  race 
and  to  a  witnessing  universe,  that  all  his  ways  are  equity 


35°  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the 


and  truth  ;  that  his  friends  are  worthy  to  receive  the 
Almighty  protection  and  blessing  he  is  to  extend  to  them  ; 
that  his  enemies  deserve  the  irrevocable  curse,  by  which 
he  is  to  consign  them  to  the  everlasting  fires  of  vengeance. 
O  !  on  that  morning  of  awakening  from  the  dust  of  the 
earth,  and  witnessing  such  a  process,  what  an  eager  atten- 
tion shall  enchain  every  eye  to  the  Judge  ;  what  clear 
conviction  burst  in  light  on  every  conscience  ;  what  deep 
emotions  thrill  through  every  heart !  How  manifest  on 
that  day  will  be  the  power  and  the  righteousness  and  the 
grace  of  the  Saviour !  How  will  he  be  glorified  and 
admired  by  all  that  have  believed  and  trusted  in  him  ! 
'  Lo !  this  is  our  God  !  we  have  waited  for  him,  and  he 
has  delivered  us.'  How  will  he  silence  all  his  enemies, 
and  bring  them  to  shame,  when,  stripped  of  all  their  pleas 
and  complaints,  they  fall  down  before  him,  self-con- 
demned, speechless,  and  in  despair ! 

Such  are  the  considerations,  which  show  us  the  wisdom 
of  God  in  appointing  temporal  death  to  our  race :  that  it 
is  impossible,  on  the  plan  commenced  with  man,  that  he 
should  possess  an  immortal  existence  upon  the  earth  ; 
that  his  removal  from  this  state,  if  necessary,  must  be 
effected  in  the  mode,  either  of  a  supernatural  change  of 
body  or  of  death  ;  and  that,  in  consequence  of  the  sin  of 
man,  and  the  scheme  of  redemption  established  for  his 
recovery,  death,  in  its  bearing  on  the  present  and  future 
state  of  man,  has  several  advantages  in  it,  as  a  mode  of 
removal,  above  that  of  a  supernatural  change  ; — such  as, 
by  its  pangs  serving  to  impress  on  the  living  a  sense  of 
their  ill-deserts  ;  by  concealing  from  their  view  a  future 
state,  to  throw  them  on  the  word  of  faith  for  their  guid- 
ance ;  by  the  warnings  it  gives,  through  its  causes,  of  its 
approach,  to  favor  their  special  preparation ;  and,  by 
reserving  the  restoration  of  the  body  by  supernatural 
power  to  the  future,  to  afford  an  opportunity  for  a  more  im- 
pressive manifestation,  at  the  last,  of  the  glory  of  God  in 
his  dealings  with  our  race. 

The  view  we  have  now  taken  of  death,  as  appointed  by 
our  Creator  in  wisdom,  admits  of  a  practical  application  ; 
with  presenting  which  1  will  close. 


Appointment  of  Temporal  Death.  351 


Is  it  appointed  unto  men  to  die  ?  Then,  let  every  one 
make  the  application  to  himself: — 'I am  included  in  this 
appointment  of  heaven.  /  too  must  die.  I  cannot  live 
here  always.  I  must  depart  hence  into  a  scene  of  retri- 
bution. I  cannot  hope  to  depart  like  Elijah,  in  a  chariot 
of  fire.  I  must  bear  the  pangs  of  death,  and  leave  this 
body  in  the  corrupting  grave,  not  to  resume  it  till  the 
resurrection.  Am  1  prepared  for  so  great  a  change  ?  I 
must  leave  this  my  birth-place,  the  scene  of  my  earliest 
joys  and  latest  hopes.  Have  I  idols  here  that  I  cannot 
forsake  ?  I  must  go  through  the  shadows  of  death,  into 
the  presence  of  God.  Have  I  chosen  a  portion  in  him 
and  his  heavenly  kingdom,  for  which  my  heart  pants? 
My  Creator  tells  me,  I  must  die.  Am  I  prepared  ?  Let 
the  question  be  ever  present  till  I  can  answer  it  with 
satisfaction.  Am  I  prepared  ?  Let  it  follow  me  till  I  die. 
A  m  I  prepared  ?  ' 

Again :  is  the  appointment  that  men  should  die  made 
by  the  Creator  in  wisdom  ?  '  Then  I  am  not  to  repine, 
that  such  a  lot  has  fallen  to  me,  and  to  my  friends  around 
me.  I  must  bow  down  at  the  feet  of  my  Sovereign,  and 
submit  to  the  appointment,  that  I  know  and  see  to  pro- 
ceed from  his  wisdom.  I  should  fall  in  with  its  practical 
designs.  Come,  let  me  survey  death  !  I  can  see  in  it 
terrors,  but  they  are  the  terrors  of  overshadowing  mercy 
to  the  living.  I  can  learn  a  lesson  here,  that  nothing  else 
this  side  eternity  can  impart.  I  see  my  ill-desert  shad- 
owed forth  in  this  emblem  of  the  second  death,  and  I  fly 
to  my  Redeemer,  who  has  the  keys  of  death  and  hell,  for 
my  deliverance.  Come,  let  me  survey  the  dead  !  They 
are  stiff  and  cold  in  their  last  slumber.  Their  spirits 
have  departed  !  But  where  ?  I  see  them  not.  If  I  call, 
they  will  not  answer  !  Yet,  amid  this  deep  silence  of  the 
dead,  I  hear  the  voice  of  heavenly  wisdom  bid  me,  *  Go, 
search  the  Scriptures.  In  them  ye  have  eternal  life. 
They  are  they  which  testify  of  the  world  unseen,  and  of 
the  way  to  reach  its  never  ending  joys.'  Come,  let  me 
survey  the  doomed  to  death  !  Disease  is  preying  on  his 
frame.  His  life  is  wasting  away.  His  Lord  has  announced 


352  The  Wisdom  of  God  in  the  Appointment,  etc. 


that  he  must  now  depart.  These  moments  of  lingering 
mercy  are  given,  for  the  poor  trembler  to  make  his  peace 
with  man  and  God.  Let  me  look  at  the  triumphs  of 
death  in  the  world.  He  has  borne  every  generation 
away  to  his  shades  !  He  has  peopled  all  his  domains  with 
his  victims.  But  I  will  not  quail  before  his  power.  I 
will  not  despair  of  the  cause  of  God.  I  will  wait,  in  hope, 
till  the  end  shall  come.  Then  shall  the  conquering 
Redeemer  mount  his  chariot  of  glory.  Then  shall  he 
appear  a  second  time,  bringing  full  salvation  unto  them 
that  look  for  him,  and  trampling  his  foes  in  the  dust. 

The  appointment  that  men  should  die,  is  made  by  the 
Creator  in  wisdom.  Then,  if  I  concur  with  the  designs  of 
that  wisdom,  I  am  forever  safe,  forever  happy.  If  I  do 
not,  I  am  not,  and  cannot  be,  either  safe  or  truly  happy.' 


WORSHIPING   GOD  IN   THE  BEAUTY  OF 
HOLINESS. 


CHRONICLES   XVI:    29— PSALMS   XXIX:    2— XCVI :    9. 
WORSHIP  THE  LORD  IN  THE  BEAUTY  OF  HOLINESS. 

THE  Psalmist  thus  gave  utterance  to  the  feelings  of  a 
pious  heart.  In  Jehovah,  the  God  whom  he  worshiped, 
he  saw  a  Being  worthy  of  the  religious  homage  of  all. 
The  joy  he  took  in  the  honor  of  this  infinite  Being,  in- 
spired the  ardent  desire  to  have  others  honor  and  serve  him 
too ;  and  that  desire  was  breathed  forth  in  the  imperative 
call :  "  Worship  the  Lord." 

Nor  was  he  indifferent  to  the  kind  of  worship  which  men 
offer,  or  the  manner  in  which  they  pay  their  devotions  to 
Jehovah.  The  spirit  and  manner  of  their  devotion,  he 
comprised  in  one  word — holiness — the  quality  which  char- 
acterizes the  being  and  the  ways  of  Jehovah  himself, 
and  which  should  characterize  the  persons  and  the  offer- 
ings of  his  worshipers,  if  there  is  to  be  maintained,  in  the 
relation  between  the  worshiped  and  the  worshiping,  the 
loveliness  and  beauty  of  unity  and  cordiality  of  feeling. 
For  holiness  is  the  crowning  excellence  of  the  Infinite 
One  : — which  sets  him  up,  as  the  pattern  of  supreme  love- 
liness and  the  fount  of  supreme  joy  to  his  intelligent  and 
moral  creation.  Holiness,  therefore,  becometh  the  being, 
the  presence,  and  the  house  of  the  Lord  forever ;  and 
they,  who  enter  his  house  and  come  into  his  presence  to 
pay  him  their  offerings,  must  come  with  '  holiness  to  the 
Lord '  inscribed  on  their  thoughts  and  feelings,  if  they 
would  be  appropriate  and  becoming  in  their  devotions — 
if  they  would  taste  the  loveliness  and  joy  of  pure  and 
acceptable  worship. 

The  words  of  the  Psalmist  then  present  two  thoughts, 
which  claim  our  attention  and  obedient  regard  ; 

46 


354  Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness. 


I.  One,  That  we  worship  God;  and— 

II.  The  other,  That  our  worship  be  characterized  with 
the  lovely  and  acceptable  spirit  of  holiness. 

I.  There  is  an  imperative  duty,  binding  on  us  all,  to 
worship  God. 

Think  for  a  moment  on  this  great  subject,  and,  in  pres- 
ence of  the  great  Jehovah,  whose  creatures  you  are,  ask 
yourselves  whether  you  are  not  held  fast,  by  righteous  and 
most  affecting  obligations,  to  pay  him  supreme  homage. 
There  is  a  God  in  existence,  an  infinite  Being,  who  presents 
himself  before  you  in  the  glories  of  a  perfect  character. 
Is  he  not,  though  unseen,  ever  present  with  all — though 
unfelt,  ever  upholding  all, — and  by  his  works  making 
known  to  all  his  eternal  power  and  godhead,  passing  be- 
fore all  in  the  glories  of  his  righteousness  and  goodness 
and  truth?  Who  then  can  be  justified  in  confining  his 
views  to  this  world  and  his  fellow-creatures ;  as  if  there 
were  no  God  in  existence,  and  as  if  these  glories  of  his 
character  were  all  a  blank  and  unmeaning  void  ?  Who 
should  not  rather  inquire  diligently  after  him,  and  seek 
his  presence,  and  bring  him  those  offerings  of  reverence 
and  respect  that  are  due  to  his  glorious  name  ? 

Again :  This  glorious  Being  is  our  Creator  and  King. 
Has  he  not  interested  his  infinite  heart  in  your  welfare, 
by  giving  you  a  rational  and  moral  existence,  capable 
of  communion  in  his  love?  and  established  a  providence 
and  moral  government  over  you,  to  guide  you  to  the 
sure  and  permanent  sources  of  your  happiness  in  him- 
self? In  respect  to  his  providence : — his  fatherly  hand, 
though  unseen,  is  constantly  presenting  to  you  its  free  and 
bounteous  gifts  to  attract  you  to  his  love,  or  administering 
to  you  the  rod  of  necessary  discipline  to  correct  your 
faults.  And  shall  you,  in  your  constant  dependence  and 
wants,  look  alone  to  things  in  his  creation  for  your  sup- 
ply, in  neglect  of  him,  the  ever  living  Fountain  and  Source 
of  all  ?  Should  not  the  constant  care  of  his  heart  bring 
us  rather  to  his  presence  with  thankful  acknowledgment 
of  his  care  and  love,  and  with  the  offering  to  him,  in 
return,  of  our  most  devoted  service  ?  And  in  his  moral 


Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness.  355 


government : — does  not  his  voice,  though  unheard  by  the 
outward  ear,  whisper  in  your  conscience  of  a  law  of  love 
towards  him  and  your  fellow-creatures,  which  he  guards 
with  the  authority  of  rewards  and  penalties?  And  does 
not  that  voice,  once  uttered  aloud  on  Sinai,  still  prolong  its 
fearful  tones  through  revelation,  in  the  command,  "  Thou 
shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  him  only  shalt  thou 
serve?"  Will  you  then  dash  all  the  hopes  and  joys  of 
your  existence  against  the  penalties  of  his  government,  by 
refusing  him  your  homage,  or  will  you  reverence  him  as 
your  Sovereign,  and  seek  in  your  devotion  to  him  the 
high  and  everlasting  rewards  of  submission  and  obedience  ? 
But  again :  This  glorious  Being,  our  Creator  and 
King,  being  especially  mindful  of  our  deep  necessities  as 
sinners,  is  now  offering  himself  to  our  acceptance  as  a 
Redeemer  and  .Sanctifier.  As  a  Redeemer,  has  he  not 
done  much  for  you  in  your  sins  to  call  you  back  to  his 
presence?  In  the  person  of  his  Son,  he  has  veiled  the 
dazzling  glories  of  the  Godhead,  that  would  consume  us 
with  their  overpowering  terrors,  and  has  come  nigh  in  the 
form  of  humanity,  to  seek  us  in  our  guilt  with  the  sym- 
pathies of  his  heart,  and  to  stand  between  the  penalties 
of  Heavenly  Justice  and  our  souls,  that  the  lightnings  of 
vengeance,  which  he  could  sustain,  might  strike  on  his 
person  and  leave  us  safe  and  unharmed  in  the  arms  of  his 
forgiving  mercy.  And  now,  in  the  earthly  sanctuary,  he 
offers  himself  as  the  refuge  and  hiding  place  of  the  guilty, 
who  would  in  him  obtain  reconciliation  with  God  and 
eternal  inheritance  in  his  love  and  kingdom.  Will  you 
then  withhold  your  hearts  from  the  calls  and  offers  of  such 
mercy,  to  brave  alone  the  penalties  of  Heavenly  wrath  ? 
Or  will  you  accept  that  mercy  with  all  joy,  and,  with  the 
offerings  of  penitence,  thankfulness,  devotedness,  bow 
down  with  heart-worship  before  the  Lord  your  Redeemer? 
As  a  Sanctifier  too,  he  meets  you  in  the  sanctuary  of  wor- 
ship, in  the  person  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  comes  to 
enliven  and  bless  with  his  presence  the  means  of  instruc- 
tion he  has  furnished,  in  his  own  inspired  word,  the 
sanctified  talents  of  his  living  people  and  ministry,  and 


356  Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness. 

the  ordinances  of  prayer  and  praise  he  hath  appointed 
for  the  utterance  of  the  feelings  of  devotion.  And  while 
he  is  present  to  call  sinners  to  repentance,  and  to  train  up 
believers  in  the  holiness  that  is  to  fit  them  for  his  spiritual 
kingdom  in  eternity,  will  you  refuse  to  come  into  his 
sanctifying  presence  and  feel  its  power — will  you  neglect 
these  only  opportunities  of  salvation  ?  Or  will  you  not 
rather  cast  in  your  lot  with  his  people,  will  you  not  unite 
with  them  in  seeking  the  grace  that  alone  fits  the  soul  for 
heavenly  joy — in  worshiping  God  the  Spirit,  in  spirit 
and  in  truth — in  worshiping  this  living  source  of  holi- 
ness and  salvation  ? 

Are  you  not  placed  under  bonds  then  from  which  you 
cannot  escape,  are  you  not  held  by  cords  of  power  you 
can  never  break — to  worship  God  ? — bonds  and  cords  of 
his  own  infinite  excellence,  his  care  of  you  as  creatures  in 
the  use  of  his  providence  and  authority,  his  mercy  towards 
you  as  sinners,  in  Christ  Jesus  and  through  the  Spirit  of 
grace. 

But  our  obligation  to  worship  God  is  not  the  only 
thought  set  before  us  in  the  exhortation  of  the  Psalmist : 
we  turn  now  to  the  other,  that 

II.  Our  worship  of  God  should  be  characterized  with 
the  lovely  and  acceptable  spirit  of  holiness.  This  thought, 
the  Psalmist  sets  before  us  in  the  concluding  words  of  the 
text :  "  in  the  beauty  of  holiness.""5  This  thought  then 
I  would  now  present  more  particularly  to  you,  as  claiming 
your  practical  regard,  viz.  that  holiness  is  that  quality, 
which  constitutes  the  true  excellence  and  beauty  of  di- 
vine worship  :  without  which  that  worship  is  necessarily 
an  offense  to  a  correct  spiritual  taste ;  and  by  which  that 

*  I  am  not  ignorant  that  some  give  to  the  closing  Hebrew  word  the  sense 
of  sanctuary,  as  if  the  exhortation  were  intended  to  call  the  Jews  to  worship 
God  in  a  certain  place,  rather  than  in  a  certain  manner — in  the  beauteous 
tabernacle,  rather  than  in  the  beauteous  spirit  of  holiness.  Yet,  though  it  is 
capable  of  that  rendering,  and  though  that  rendering  is  suggested  by  the 
translators  of  our  common  version  in  a  marginal  reading,  I  am  satisfied  with 
the  sense  they  have  preferred  to  give  to  it  and  have  introduced  into  the  text, — 
viz.  holiness, — the  quality  that  characterizes  the  worship  offered. 


Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness.  357 


worship,  whatever  else  is  imperfect  in  it,  is  ever  commend- 
ed to  such  a  taste  as  lovely  and  acceptable. 

But  before  we  consider  this  bearing  of  holiness  on  the 
excellence  of  divine  worship,  let  us  fix  more  precisely  in 
our  minds  the  idea  of  the  moral  quality  denoted  by  the 
word  holiness.  The  primary  sense  of  the  English  word 
is  that  of  wholeness,  entireness,  soundness,  to  which  the 
Hebrew,  corresponds,  as  consecrated — sacredly,  entirely;— 
and  it  is  applied  not  to  the  intellectual,  but  to  the  moral 
character;  not  to  the  understanding,  but  to  the  heart — 
the  seat  of  the  emotions  and  purposes  ;  in  order  to  denote 
that  purity  of  feeling,  that  integrity  of  purpose,  which 
estimates  things  and  treats  them  according  to  their  worth 
and  importance,  and  which  especially  regards  as  inviola- 
ble those  rules  of  conduct,  on  which  the  welfare  of  intel- 
lectual and  moral  beings  depends,  such  as  truth,  righteous- 
ness, charity.  This  wholeness  of  character,  as  the  word 
means,  considered  as  a  voluntary  state,  is  the  devotion  of 
the  whole  being  to  that  which  is  morally  good,  and  sep- 
aration from  that  which  is  morally  evil.  It  is  whole- 
souled  piety  towards  God  ;  whole-souled  charity  towards 
man  ;  and  whole-souled  abhorrence  of  that  which  work- 
eth  evil  towards  either. 

Now  that  this  whole-hearted  devotion  is  necessary,  in 
order  to  render  the  worship  of  God  truly  excellent  and 
acceptable,  is  conclusively  proved  by  that  sense  of  fitness 
and  propriety,  which  inheres  in  our  moral  natures  and 
which  enables  us  to  judge  as  to  what  is  becoming  and 
appropriate,  in  the  relation  of  things  one  to  another. 

Consider  then,  either  the  Being  to  be  worshiped,  the 
design  for  which  his  worship  is  established,  or  the  particu- 
lar parts  of  service  belonging  to  that  worship  ;  and  judge 
whether  its  true  moral  beauty  and  excellence  depends  not 
on  holiness  or  whole-heartedness  in  the  worshipers. 

Think  then  of  the  Being  approached  in  religious  wor- 
ship:  the  Lord — or  Jehovah — the  eternal,  immutable,  and 
infinite — the  all-knowing,  the  all-powerful,  and  most  holy 
—the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  all — the  Redeemer  and  Sanc- 
tifier  of  his  chosen.  Love  to  the  welfare  of  his  moral 


358  Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness. 


creation  occupies  his  whole  heart ;  concentrates  his  whole 
wisdom  in  counsel ;  sways  his  whole  power  in  action  ; 
keeps  him  firm  in  his  uncorrupt  truth  and  righteousness; 
makes  him  strong  to  hate  all  iniquity  and  frown  it  away 
from  his  presence  ;  and  renders  him  the  fountain  of  eter- 
nal confidence,  love,  and  joy  to  the  kingdom,  who  in  holy 
consecration  yield  themselves  to  him  as  his  obedient  peo- 
ple. How  then  shall  we  approach  this  Being?  Who  shall 
come  into  his  presence  with  acceptance?  Who  shall 
ascend  his  holy  hill  with  the  offering  that  is  due  to  his 
name?  Who  unite  his  heart  to  the  heart  of  Jehovah,  in 
the  loveliness  of  sincere  unity,  in  the  joy  of  pure  com- 
munion ? 

Truly,  there  can  be  no  pure  and  acceptable  approach 
of  one  being  to  another,  except  on  the  basis  of  spiritual 
resemblance — unity  in  thought,  feeling,  action.  For  what 
agreement  can  pure  benevolence  have  with  supreme  sel- 
fishness;  what  communion,  light  with  darkness;  what 
concord,  Christ  with  Belial  ? 

If  then  you  approach  the  most  high  and  holy,  come 
with  your  whole  mind  and  heart  consecrated  to  him  and 
his  cause  of  righteousness  and  truth.  Yield  your  whole 
souls  in  willing  obedience  to  the  control  of  this  King  of 
righteousness.  Commit  your  whole  being  to  the  care  of 
his  redeeming  and  sanctifying  grace.  This  will  bring  you 
into  true  and  cordial  union  with  him  and  his  plans  of 
righteousness  and  grace.  This  will  render  your  reverent 
and  humble  communion  with  him,  sweet  and  attractive 
to  your  own  hearts,  lovely  and  acceptable  in  the  sight  of 
men  and  angels,  and  accepted  in  the  sight  of  God.  For 
thus  you  withdraw  yourselves  from  the  vanities  and 
pleasures,  that  set  up  their  rival  and  idolatrous  empire 
against  God  ;  that  debase  and  disappoint ;  that  fill  with 
sin  and  wretchedness.  You  unite  your  hearts  and  sym- 
pathies to  Him,  who  is  the  fount  of  eternal  holiness  and 
joy  to  his  servants.  You  take  your  proper  place  before 
him,  as  humble,  devoted,  obedient  children,  that  would 
forever  be  united  to  his  excellence  and  loveliness,  and 
would  gather  thence  your  eternal  supplies  of  knowledge 


Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness.  359 


and  love  and  joy.  You  worship  him  in  the  beauty  and 
loveliness  that  pertains  to  his  character,  by  sharing  in 
that  character  in  your  own  humble  measure,  and  desiring 
to  grow  up  into  that  character  more  and  more  forever. 

Consider,  next,  the  design  for  which  the  public  worship 
of  God  is  instituted,  and  see  how  necessary  it  is  to  the 
fitness  and  excellence  of  that  worship,  that  it  be  offered 
in  holiness. 

The  design  of  instituting  public  worship  in  our  world, 
doubtless  was  to  make  it  a  means  to  a  further  end,  to 
make  its  forms  the  means  of  paying  our  spiritual  homage 
to  God,  and  of  aiding  his  spiritual  dominion  in  our  own 
hearts  and  in  the  hearts  of  others.  So  was  it  with  the 
forms  of  worship,  instituted  in  Israel  through  Moses.  So 
is  it  with  the  simpler  rites  of  worship,  introduced  into  the 
Church  of  Christ  through  his  apostles.  The  design  was, 
that  we  might  wait  on  God  to  honor  him  with  the  ex- 
pressed homage  of  reverence,  submission,  confidence, 
thankfulness,  and  joy  ;  and  to  obtain  from  him,  for  our- 
selves and  others,  the  gifts  of  his  instruction,  correction, 
benediction,  on  our  way  to  his  eternal  kingdom.  It  was 
that  his  people  might  honor  him,  as  the  Sum  and  Source 
of  all  Excellence,  and  be  furnished  by  him  unto  every 
good  word  and  work  in  his  kingdom. 

How  then  can  the  public  worship  of  God  be  truly 
excellent,  and  made,  in  accordance  with  its  design,  truly 
lovely  and  acceptable,  except  as  it  is  offered  in  holiness? 
The  spirit  of  holiness  renders  the  service  truly  a  means  of 
honoring  God.  For  it  is  an  honor  to  God  that  is  due  to  his 
glorious  character,  that  we  accord  to  him  the  reverent 
adoration,  the  submission,  the  confidence,  the  joy  of  our 
hearts.  And  this  honor  is  truly  rendered  to  him  by 
those,  who  come  to  him  in  the  heart  worship  of  a  holy 
character,  that  beats,  in  its  humble  and  imperfect  meas- 
ure, in  sympathy  and  unison  with  his  character.  For 
how  shall  the  heart,  that  loves  benevolence  and  purity  and 
righteousness,  look  up  to  the  infinite  God,  shining  forth  in 
the  full  glory  of  those  perfections,  otherwise  than  with 
emotions  of  supreme  respect  and  reverence,  that  truly 


360  Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty -of  Holiness. 


accord  in  devotion  with  the  homage  which  the  lips  utter? 
How  shall  such  a  heart  not  feel  the  sweet  and  powerful 
ties,  which  bind  its  interests  to  his  supreme  throne,  and 
give  beauteous  meaning  and  sincerity  to  the  utterance  of 
submission  and  confidence, — submitting  all  things  cheer- 
fully to  his  dominion,  and  confiding  all  to  his  perfect  care  ? 
How  shall  not  such  a  heart  feel  the  preciousness  of  all  its 
experience  of  his  Almighty  care,  and  utter  pleasant  songs 
of  thankfulness  ?  And  how,  in  looking  up  to  the  bound- 
less treasures  of  wisdom  and  love  on  which  it  now  feasts, 
and  hopes  to  feast  forever  as  its  inexhaustible  portion, 
shall  it  not  swell  with  rapturous  joy,  while  saying,  in  sin- 
cerity and  truth,  unto  God,  '  Thou  art  my  God,  my  portion, 
and  strength  forever?' 

The  spirit  of  holiness  in  the  worshipers  also  renders 
their  service,  according  to  its  design,  a  means  of  obtain- 
ing, for  themselves  and  others,  spiritual  blessings  from  God. 
For  "  them  that  honor  God  "  in  their  worship,  "  he  will 
honor  ;  and  they  that  despise  him  shall  be  lightly  esteem- 
ed." They  that  come  before  him  as  partakers  in  his  own 
spirit  of  holiness  and  love,  and  that  come,  in  accordance 
with  the  design  of  worship,  to  obtain  grace  to  help  them 
in  their  needs,  make  their  appeal  to  a  heart  that  loves  the 
same  cause  as  they,  that  loves  it  more  intensely  than  they 
ever  can,  and  that  is  ready  to  sympathize  with  them  in 
their  desires  to  have  that  cause  advanced,  in  their  own 
hearts,  and  in  the  hearts  of  their  fellow-creatures.  These 
shall,  in  their  worship,  receive  the  blessing  from  the 
Lord,  and  obtain  righteousness  from  the  God  of  their 
salvation.  For  they  have  clean  hands  and  pure  hearts, 
and  lift  not  up  their  souls  to  vanity  ;  but,  in  the  beauty  of 
a  pure  trust  and  hope,  wait  on  the  God  of  their  salvation 
for  every  good  in  this  life  and  in  that  which  is  to  come. 

If,  then,  you  would  appear  before  God  in  the  spiritual 
beauty  of  the  worship  that  honors  him  and  secures  his 
blessings,  you  must  worship  him  in  righteousness  and 
true  holiness.  Otherwise,  as  you  take  the  forms  of  honor- 
ing him  on  your  lips,  you  will  only  mock  him  with  heart- 
less ceremonies  ;  as  you  outwardly  ask  his  blessing,  you 
will  inwardly  provoke  his  curse. 


Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness.  361 


Once  again,  I  ask  you  to  consider  the  parts  of  service, 
which  engage  our  attention  in  the  public  worship  of  God, 
and  to  judge,  whether  the  true  excellence  and  beauty  of 
that  worship  does  not  depend  on  the  spirit  of  holy  devo- 
tedness  in  the  worshipers  ? 

That  worship,  as  appointed  in  the  earthly  Church,  con- 
sists essentially, — under  all  the  circumstantial  differences 
of  order,  arrangement  and  manner,  which  it  admits, — of  the 
reading  of  the  word  of  God,  of  instruction  and  exhorta- 
tion from  that  word  by  the  living  ministry,  of  address  to 
God  in  prayer  and  song,  and  of  benediction  from  the  God 
of  grace  and  salvation. 

How,  then,  will  you  wait  on  God  in  the  public  reading 
of  his  word  ?  and  in  the  dispensations  of  that  word  by  the 
living  ministry  ?  What  is  appropriate  and  acceptable  ? 
What  is  unbecoming  and  offensive?  One  thing  is  clear, 
that,  in  these  parts  of  the  service,  God  draws  nigh  to  men, 
to  speak  to  them  in  tones  of  authority  and  mercy.  For, 
however  imperfect  the  voice  of  the  human  reader  in  utter- 
ing that  word,  or  however  inadequate  the  methods  of  the 
human  preacher  to  set  forth  the  full  meaning  of  that  word 
in  his  instructions, — whatever  means  and  agencies  inter- 
vene in  this  part  of  divine  service  between  God  and  his 
worshipers, — yet  the  word  read  is  his  :  the  living,  faith- 
ful ministry  of  that  word  is  his ;  he  takes  this  method  to 
come  nigh  to  men  ;  to  meet  them  in  his  sanctuary  with 
reproof,  counsel,  correction,  instruction  in  righteousness. 
He  addresses  them  with  the  power  of  his  invisible  Spirit, 
and  with  words  of  truth  and  grace,  on  the  great  subjects 
of  his  glory  and  their  welfare  here  and  in  the  world  to 
come.  That  still  small  voice  from  him  that  is  enthroned 
over  all,  rises  clear  above  all  the  human  agencies  in  the 
scene,  and  bids  every  one  that  hath  an  ear,  hearken  to 
what  the  Spirit  saith  to  the  collected  congregation. 
How,  then,  will  you  here  meet  God,  on  his  throne  of 
instruction?  Would  you  turn  away  your  face  from  the 
words  and  instructions  of  an  earthly  father?  Would  you 
sit  listlessly,  or  compose  yourself  to  sleep,  before  an 
earthly  ruler,  delivering  to  you  precepts  of  authority  ? 

47 


362  Worshiping  God  in  tJic  Beauty  of  Holiness. 


Would  you  amuse  yourself  with  vain  thoughts,  when 
words  of  life  and  death  to  you  hung-  on  his  lips  ?  Surely, 
the  great  Jehovah  is  despised,  if  you  thus  treat  his 
instructions.  The  rude  and  insulting  offense  is  given, 
that  treats  his  presence  and  words  of  life  as  less  valuable 
than  the  momentary  indulgence  of  sloth  or  vanity  or 
amusement.  No:  we  are  to  turn  our  hearts  to  his  words 
of  instruction  ;  we  are  to  feel  that  we  are  present  before 
God ;  and  to  say,  each  from  the  heart,  '  I  will  hear  what 
the  Lord  God  shall  say  unto  me.  I  will  turn  mine  ears 
to  instruction,  and  seek  for  my  soul  the  way  of  life  from 
God.'  We  are  thus  to  meet  God  speaking  to  us  through 
his  word  and  ministry,  in  the  spirit  of  attention  and  obe- 
dience, if  we  would  act  in  a  manner  appropriate  and 
becoming  the  service — if  we  would  appear  lovely  and 
acceptable  before  the  God  we  worship. 

In  addressing  Jehovah  in  prayer  and  sacred  song,  how 
can  our  worship  be  appropriate  and  acceptable,  unless 
offered  in  a  spirit  of  holiness,  with  a  mind  and  heart  atten- 
tive to  the  honor  of  God  and  the  spiritual  welfare  of  his 
creatures?  In  approaching  his  throne  of  majesty  with 
our  adorations,  confessions,  petitions,  intercessions  and 
thanksgivings,  whether  in  prayer  or  in  song,  we  take 
upon  ourselves  to  speak  unto  the  Most  High  God  :  and 
before  that  throne  is  Jesus,  the  Mediator  of  the  New 
Covenant,  who  hath  died  for  us,  the  just  for  the  unjust, 
that  he  might  bring  us  nigh  to  that  throne  with  accept- 
ance. However  humble  and  imperfect  the  language  in 
which  we  breathe  out  our  thoughts  and  feelings  to  God  ; 
yet  the  privilege  is,  in  this  part  of  service,  extended  to  us 
most  freely,  to  call  on  the  name  of  the  Lord,  that  we  may 
be  saved  and  obtain  audience  and  favor  with  the  God  of 
our  salvation.  The  throne  of  the  Heavenly  Majesty  is 
nigh  ;  the  way  of  approach  is  open  and  clear ;  and  even 
the  sinful  and  unrighteous  have  a  righteousness  provided 
for  them  to  shield  them  from  wrath,  when  they  come  in 
faith,  and  fix  their  attention  and  hearts  on  the  things  of 
God.  How,  then,  when  his  people  meet  him  to  breathe 
out  their  hearts  before  him,  shall  we  treat  rightly  this 


Worshiping  God  in  the  Beauty  of  Holiness.  363 

hearer  of  prayer  and  praise  ?  Would  you  turn  away  from 
the  opportunity,  to  indulge  in  the  idle  doze,  or  to  amuse 
yourself  with  companions  as  thoughtless  as  yourselves? 
Such  neglect  of  the  great  Jehovah  at  the  hour  he  meets 
you  for  audience, — how  unbecoming  and  offensive  must  it 
appear  to  his  eyes  of  purity,  how  unbecoming  and  offen- 
sive even  to  your  own  eyes,  should  they  be  once  opened 
to  see  the  reality  !  But  how  appropriate  and  lovely  is  the 
sacrifice  of  prayer  and  praise,  when,  beyond  the  outward 
form,  that  a  thoughtless  mind  might  abuse,  there  lies  deep 
in  the  heart  the  consciousness  that  God  is  present :  and 
there  ascend,  from  its  inmost  recesses,  emotions  that  seek 
their  true  utterance  in  breathings  of  prayer  and  praise  to 
his  most  holy  name !  How  lovely  and  acceptable  before 
God,  to  treat  him  with  whole-hearted  devotedness,  as  our 
pardoning  and  covenant-keeping  God,  our  Refuge  and 
Friend  in  life's  changes,  our  Saviour  in  death,  and  in  the 
world  to  come;  to  say  to  him,  as  his  people  have  ever 
done,  "  Forgive  my  iniquity  ;  uphold  me  with  thy  free 
Spirit;  lead  me  into  the  land  of  uprightness;  make  me 
joyful  in  thy  countenance  ;  and  I  will  now  and  forever 
utter  the  memories  of  thy  great  goodness!" 

It  is  thus,  and  thus  only,  by  true  devotion  in  the  house 
of  God,  that  you  are  prepared,  at  the  close  of  service,  to 
receive,  in  all  thankfulness,  his  high  and  holy  benediction. 
For  while  that  closing  service  is  performed,  how  unsuitable 
and  offensive  is  the  impatient  hurry,  the  thoughtless  noise, 
the  vacant  stare,  that  treat  it  as  an  unmeaning  ceremony 
—that  proclaims  indifference  to  the  great  Jehovah,  whether 
he  utter  a  blessing  or  a  curse.  But  how  appropriate 
and  lovely  is  the  spirit  of  that  whole-souled  worshiper, 
who  stands,  in  attentive  silence,  to  hear  God  pronounce 
through  his  earthly  servants  his  benediction  ;  who,  as  it 
is  uttered,  sends  up  to  God  the  silent  ejaculation,  that  it 
may  fall  and  rest  on  his  heart,  '  Bless  me,  even  me,  O  my 
Father  !' 

If,  then,  you  consider  the  essential  parts  of  the  divine 
service  in  their  meaning;  or  the  great  design  for  which 
that  worship  has  been  instituted  :  or  the  character  of  the 


364  Worshiping  God  in  tlic  Beauty  of  Holiness. 


Being-  who  is  worshiped  ;  is  it  not  obvious  that  the  true 
excellence  and  beauty  of  divine  worship  depends  on  its 
being  offered  in  holiness?  And  when  you  consider  the 
obligations  that  bind  you  to  draw  nigh  to  God  in  religious 
worship,  is  not  the  duty  which  the  Psalmist  proposes  to 
you  worthy  of  your  thoughtful  and  obedient  regard : 
"  Worship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness  "  ? 

There  are  two  thoughts  which  I  would  suggest  at  con- 
cluding:  that  we  keep  our  worship  in  the  earthly  sanc- 
tuary pure;  and  that  we  here  fix  our  hope  on  the  glories 
of  an  eternal  worship  in  heaven. 

Let  us  keep  our  worship  in  the  earthly  sanctuary  pure. 
Here  we  now  meet  God  on  our  way  to  the  throne  of 
judgment  and  the  recompenses  of  eternity.  We  here  halt 
from  time  to  time  on  the  way  ;  to  refresh  ourselves  with 
joy  in  his  presence  ;  to  gather  strength  to  endure  and 
overcome  the  trials  and  temptations  incident  to  this  pro- 
bationary state:  and  to  quicken  in  our  hearts  that  spir- 
itual life  that  fits  the  soul  for  heavenly  rest.  When 
coming  before  God  on  such  an  errand,  with  such  interests 
dependent  upon  him,  surely  it  becomes  every  one  to  draw 
nigh  him  in  sincerity  and  truth.  Let  us,  then,  my  friends, 
as  we  engage  in  the  worship  of  God  here,  ever  banish 
from  us  every  unworthy  thought  and  feeling,  every  dis- 
turbing care,  all  levity  of  manner  and  behavior,  and  wait 
upon  him  in  all  the  loveliness  of  a  serious,  thoughtful, 
obedient  and  joyous  faith.  For  surely  it  were  a  lovely 
spectacle — the  image  of  a  heaven  upon  earth — to  see 
those,  who  come  up  to  the  courts  of  the  Lord,  all  realizing 
the  presence  and  glory  of  the  God  that  is  worshiped  ; 
according  to  him,  from  full  and  earnest  hearts,  the  honor 
that  is  his  due  ;  and  seeking,  in  every  part  of  the  service, 
to  obtain  his  heavenly  grace  on  themselves  and  others ! 
Oh!  shall  it  ever  be?  Shall  there  ever  come  from  the 
Lord  the  day  of  power  and  glory,  that  shall  set  up  that 
heavenly  scene  everywhere  on  the  face  of  this  now  pol- 
luted world  ? 

Finally,  let  us  fix  our  hope  on  the  glories  of  an  eternal 
worship  in  heaven.  That  is  a  lovely  and  blessed  world, 


Worshiping  God  in  the  B canty  of  Holiness.  365 


where  all  hearts  yield  to  God  the  honor  and  obedience 
that  are  his  due,  and  pour  out  eternally  their  thanks  and 
praises  for- his  inexhaustible  love  and  kindness.  That  is 
the  land  of  uprightness  ;  where  dwell  the  perfectly  pure 
and  devoted,  whose  vision  of  God  grows  eternally 
brighter,  whose  full-hearted  love  never  droops,  whose 
deep-toned  praises  never  tire.  Oh,  shall  we  ever  reach 
that  blessed  world  ?  Shall  we  ever  mingle  in  its  praises  ? 
Let  us  give  all  diligence,  in  this  our  earthly  pilgrimage, 
to  make  our  calling  and  election  sure.  Let  us  now  draw 
near  the  Lord,  and  learn  here  on  earth  to  engage  our 
hearts  in  those  blessed  employments.  So  shall  an  entrance 
at  length  be  ministered  unto  us  abundantly  into  that  ever- 
lasting kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ ! 
So  shall  Cherubim  and  Seraphim  bear  us  up  to  his  pres- 
ence, to  unite  with  their  throngs  and  with  all  the  hosts  of 
the  ransomed  in  the  pure  and  glorious  worship  they  ever 
offer  at  his  throne  ! 

Oh,  shall  we  ever  reach  that  blessed  world  ?     Shall  we 
ever  mingle  in  its  exalted  praises? 


n  A  T»TI 


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